Terraform: AWS ELB Cant Get Attribute

[saulshanabrook]

I have set up a route53 alias to point to an ELB, as in the example. This worked great for creating it. However, I modified some parts of the records, and now when i try terraform refresh I get:

Error configuring: 12 error(s) occurred:

* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'zone_id' for variable 'aws_elb.external.zone_id'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'dns_name' for variable 'aws_elb.external.dns_name'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'zone_id' for variable 'aws_elb.external.zone_id'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'dns_name' for variable 'aws_elb.external.dns_name'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'zone_id' for variable 'aws_elb.external.zone_id'
* Resource 'aws_elb.frontend' does not have attribute 'dns_name' for variable 'aws_elb.frontend.dns_name'
* Resource 'aws_elb.frontend' does not have attribute 'zone_id' for variable 'aws_elb.frontend.zone_id'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'dns_name' for variable 'aws_elb.external.dns_name'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'dns_name' for variable 'aws_elb.external.dns_name'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'zone_id' for variable 'aws_elb.external.zone_id'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'zone_id' for variable 'aws_elb.external.zone_id'
* Resource 'aws_elb.external' does not have attribute 'dns_name' for variable 'aws_elb.external.dns_name'

I am confused what the problem is, because it was able to create the route53 records correctly, using those variables.

[saulshanabrook]

I tried deleting the ELBs and records manually and removing them from the state, so it has to recreate them, but I am getting the same error.

[saulshanabrook]

OK I managed to work around this by removing all the route53 terraform defintions, creating the ELBs, then adding them back in. Then I didn't get that error.

This might have to do with the fact that I am creating the route53 items in a module, passing in the ELB info, like this:

module "first" {
  source = "./public-route"
  zone_id = "ddd"
  name = "domain.com"

  alias_name = "${aws_elb.external.dns_name}"
  alias_zone_id = "${aws_elb.external.zone_id}"
}

module "secnd" {
  source = "./public-route"
  zone_id = "ddd"
  name = "calls-api"

  alias_name = "${aws_elb.external.dns_name}"
  alias_zone_id = "${aws_elb.external.zone_id}"
}

[apparentlymart]

Within the ./public-route module, are you accessing these values as (e.g.) ${var.alias_name}} rather than explicitly ${aws_elb.external.dns_name}? The resource namespace is separate for each module, so the child module only has access to the data passed in via its variables.

[saulshanabrook]

Yes in the module I am accessing them as vars. It does work some of the time, like I mentioned in the previous comment, so the syntax is correct, it just fails on updating.

[appdynamics-ops]

So, you have to create your environment, then create more of your environment, there's gotta be a better way than this. I'm having the same issue.

[josh-padnick]

I can confirm we're having the same issue as well. Even adding an explicit depends_on = ["resource_type.resource_name"] doesn't solve the problem. This looks like a bug, and is potentially the same issue as reported in #2859 and #2583. It appears related to modules.

I've been able to deterministically reproduce the bug as follows:

Works fine:

• Module A
  
  
  
  • Invokes Module B
  
  
  • Creates Resource 1
  
  

Causes error:

• Module A
  
  
  
  • Invokes Module B
  
  
  • Creates Resource 1
  
  
  • Invokes Module C
    
    
    
    
    
    • with Parameter whose value is a property on Resource 1
    
    
    
  
  

Interestingly, there's even a param passed into Module A that now fails once I invoke Module C.

I can't share my Terraform templates publicly, but if a specific person wants to see them, I'd be happy to share.

[shanielh]

@josh-padnick I managed to create a simple reproduction of the bug.

Debug log of destroy command,

The repository contains everything needed for reproduction :
https://github.com/shanielh/terraform_module_bug/tree/master/main

[trentonstrong]

This issue effects us quite a bit and slows down development with Terraform, since the workarounds require a lot of commenting and manual state management.

Would be willing to dive deeper on the issue if I could be pointed in the right direction!

[ajk8]

It's now coming up on a year since the last comment, and I just hit this bug again (TF version 0.7.1). In my case, I am not using variables, but directly accessing aws_elb resources which are _internal to the module_. This prevents me from abstracting out repeated collections of resources into self-contained modules. Instead what I have is hundreds of lines of copy-paste and find-and-replace (from iam all the way up through route53), which I would prefer to avoid. Manual state management is a complete non-starter. Any chance that we're going to see a fix?

[mitchellh]

I ran the reproduction that @shanielh posted and I can confirm older versions failed but the latest Terraform version succeeds so this was fixed at some point.

@ajk8 Could you open a new issue with a reproduction since the above repro is now fixed?

[guildencrantz]

Did this break again? Because literally using the Alias record example is failing with Terraform v0.7.10.

mhenkel@C02RP5M7G8WP مثابرة ~/pfpt/src/efp-aws-kafka-zookeeper/kafka/t
cat t.tf
resource "aws_elb" "main" {
  name = "foobar-terraform-elb"
  availability_zones = ["us-east-1c"]

  listener {
    instance_port = 80
    instance_protocol = "http"
    lb_port = 80
    lb_protocol = "http"
  }
}

resource "aws_route53_record" "www" {
  zone_id = "${aws_route53_zone.primary.zone_id}"
  name = "example.com"
  type = "A"

  alias {
    name = "${aws_elb.main.dns_name}"
    zone_id = "${aws_elb.main.zone_id}"
    evaluate_target_health = true
  }
}
mhenkel@C02RP5M7G8WP مثابرة ~/pfpt/src/efp-aws-kafka-zookeeper/kafka/t
terraform plan
module root: 1 error(s) occurred:

* resource 'aws_route53_record.www' config: unknown resource 'aws_route53_zone.primary' referenced in variable aws_route53_zone.primary.zone_id
mhenkel@C02RP5M7G8WP مثابرة ~/pfpt/src/efp-aws-kafka-zookeeper/kafka/t
terraform -v                                                                                                                                                                                             ⏎
Terraform v0.7.10

[mitchellh]

The example is just referencing something that doesn't exist for example reasons (our examples aren't fully complete cause it can require many more resources). In this case, you're referencing a non-existent zone.

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