Terraform: core: prevent_destroy does not prevent destroy when caused by reducing the count

[Gary-Armstrong]

I do not know if this is a documentation bug or a TF bug or a bug in my expectations.

The situation is that I'm using instance count variables to create/destroy instances. I also am working hard on finding a way to have EIPs persist during instance termination. Well, prevent_destroy = true seems like what I want. Also due to that "diffs don't match" issue, I feel like ignore_changes is also great for me.

So I did this:

resource "aws_eip" "wxmix_test_eip" {
  count = "${var.wxtest_count}"
  depends_on = [ "aws_internet_gateway.main" ]
    instance = "${element(aws_instance.wxtest.*.id, count.index)}"
    vpc = true
  lifecycle {
    prevent_destroy = true
    ignore_changes = ["instance"]
  }
}

I already have 5 test instances. When I plan on reducing to 2 test instances:

terraform plan -var 'wxtest_count=2'
Refreshing Terraform state prior to plan...

null_resource.chef_provision_wxtest.4: Refreshing state... (ID: 1242890369942463320)
null_resource.chef_provision_wxtest.3: Refreshing state... (ID: 5867636346600329267)
null_resource.chef_provision_wxtest.2: Refreshing state... (ID: 6074915431198646171)
...
- aws_eip.wxmix_test_eip.2

- aws_eip.wxmix_test_eip.3

- aws_eip.wxmix_test_eip.4

- aws_instance.wxtest.2

- aws_instance.wxtest.3

- aws_instance.wxtest.4

- null_resource.chef_provision_wxtest.2

- null_resource.chef_provision_wxtest.3

- null_resource.chef_provision_wxtest.4

- null_resource.remote-exec_provision_wxtest.2

- null_resource.remote-exec_provision_wxtest.3

- null_resource.remote-exec_provision_wxtest.4


Plan: 0 to add, 0 to change, 12 to destroy.

This isn't what I expected; the EIP are still being destroyed.

Where does this issue lie? Me, or TF, or the docs?

[catsby]

Hey @Gary-Armstrong thanks for writing in. The core problem here is that prevent_destroy is not preventing destroys caused by reducing the count. I believe this is more a TF core problem, not you at all :smile:

[Gary-Armstrong]

Thanks @catsby. Are you clarifying that prevent_destroy will only work in the context of a terraform destroy command? I'd ask that the docs be updated, but I'm not going to suggest that anyone drop core work for docs at this point in the dev cycle.

[catsby]

I'm clarifying that prevent_destroy is not working as intended :smile: .

I've re-titled this issue and it should get picked up with other core work. There's another issue regarding ignore_changes that is already getting some work done, and this may be picked up in the process.

Thanks again!

[mitchellh]

Verified this is broken with a test. Working on it now.

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