terraform/website/source/docs/provisioners/file.html.markdown

layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	Provisioner: file	docs-provisioners-file	The `file` provisioner is used to copy files or directories from the machine executing Terraform to the newly created resource. The `file` provisioner only supports `ssh` type connections.

File Provisioner

The file provisioner is used to copy files or directories from the machine executing Terraform to the newly created resource. The file provisioner only supports ssh type connections.

Example usage

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
    ...

    # Copies the myapp.conf file to /etc/myapp.conf
    provisioner "file" {
        source = "conf/myapp.conf"
        destination = "/etc/myapp.conf"
    }

    # Copies the configs.d folder to /etc/configs.d
    provisioner "file" {
        source = "conf/configs.d"
        destination = "/etc"
    }
}

Argument Reference

The following arguments are supported:

• source - (Required) This is the source file or folder. It can be specified as relative to the current working directory or as an absolute path.

• destination - (Required) This is the destination path. It must be specified as an absolute path.

Directory Uploads

The file provisioner is also able to upload a complete directory to the remote machine. When uploading a directory, there are a few important things you should know.

First, the destination directory must already exist. If you need to create it, use a remote-exec provisioner just prior to the file provisioner in order to create the directory.

Next, the existence of a trailing slash on the source path will determine whether the directory name will be embedded within the destination, or whether the destination will be created. An example explains this best:

If the source is /foo (no trailing slash), and the destination is /tmp, then the contents of /foo on the local machine will be uploaded to /tmp/foo on the remote machine. The foo directory on the remote machine will be created by Terraform.

If the source, however, is /foo/ (a trailing slash is present), and the destination is /tmp, then the contents of /foo will be uploaded directly into /tmp directly.

This behavior was adopted from the standard behavior of rsync. Note that under the covers, rsync may or may not be used.