Error creating IAM User X: EntityAlreadyExists: User with name X already exists

[eperdeme]

Hello,

I was reading the book and doing this example, but if you modify the list in anyway except append it breaks badly and tries to rename existing users. Is there a fix for this?

terraform-up-and-running-code/code/terraform/05-tips-and-tricks/loops-and-if-statements/live/global/three-iam-users-unique-names/vars.tf

Line 4 in 2b64b2e

default = ["neo", "trinity", "morpheus"]

[brikis98]

Yes, unfortunately, it's a limitation in Terraform :(

See hashicorp/terraform#14275 and hashicorp/terraform#17179 for details.

[eperdeme]

This is a real shame, it literally makes the tool unusable to manage large numbers of items such as subnets or firewall chains.

I guess this is why even the UK Gov terraform code just looks so copy and paste.
https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-terraform-provisioning/blob/master/projects/user_management/resources/integration/users.tf

Maybe I'l have to see about some sort of template to generate the TF files, but this means more wrappers :(

[brikis98]

Agreed, it's quite a painful limitation. Hopefully, there will be a solution in the next version of Terraform.

[CoSellCloud]

You can manage existing users using the import command now:

terraform import aws_iam_user.trinity trinity