terraform/website/source/docs/commands/push.html.markdown

layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	Command: push	docs-commands-push	The `terraform push` command is used to upload the Terraform configuration to HashiCorp's Atlas service for automatically managing your infrastructure in the cloud.

Command: push

The terraform push command uploads your Terraform configuration to be managed by HashiCorp's Atlas. By uploading your configuration to Atlas, Atlas can automatically run Terraform for you, will save all state transitions, will save plans, and will keep a history of all Terraform runs.

This makes it significantly easier to use Terraform as a team: team members modify the Terraform configurations locally and continue to use normal version control. When the Terraform configurations are ready to be run, they are pushed to Atlas, and any member of your team can run Terraform with the push of a button.

Atlas can also be used to set ACLs on who can run Terraform, and a future update of Atlas will allow parallel Terraform runs and automatically perform infrastructure locking so only one run is modifying the same infrastructure at a time.

Usage

Usage: terraform push [options] [path]

The path argument is the same as for the apply command.

The command-line flags are all optional. The list of available flags are:

• -atlas-address=<url> - An alternate address to an Atlas instance. Defaults to https://atlas.hashicorp.com.

• -upload-modules=true - If true (default), then the modules being used are all locked at their current checkout and uploaded completely to Atlas. This prevents Atlas from running terraform get for you.

• -name=<name> - Name of the infrastructure configuration in Atlas. The format of this is: "username/name" so that you can upload configurations not just to your account but to other accounts and organizations. This setting can also be set in the configuration in the Atlas section.

• -no-color - Disables output with coloring

• -overwrite=foo - Marks a specific variable to be updated on Atlas. Normally, if a variable is already set in Atlas, Terraform will not send the local value (even if it is different). This forces it to send the local value to Atlas. This flag can be repeated multiple times.

• -token=<token> - Atlas API token to use to authorize the upload. If blank or unspecified, the ATLAS_TOKEN environment variable will be used.

• -var='foo=bar' - Set the value of a variable for the Terraform configuration.

• -var-file=foo - Set the value of variables using a variable file. This flag can be used multiple times.

• -vcs=true - If true (default), then Terraform will detect if a VCS is in use, such as Git, and will only upload files that are committed to version control. If no version control system is detected, Terraform will upload all files in path (parameter to the command).

Packaged Files

The files that are uploaded and packaged with a push are all the files in the path given as the parameter to the command, recursively. By default (unless -vcs=false is specified), Terraform will automatically detect when a VCS such as Git is being used, and in that case will only upload the files that are committed. Because of this built-in intelligence, you don't have to worry about excluding folders such as ".git" or ".hg" usually.

If Terraform doesn't detect a VCS, it will upload all files.

The reason Terraform uploads all of these files is because Terraform cannot know what is and isn't being used for provisioning, so it uploads all the files to be safe. To exclude certain files, specify the -exclude flag when pushing, or specify the exclude parameter in the Atlas configuration section.

Terraform Variables

When you push, Terraform will automatically set the local values of your Terraform variables on Atlas. The values are only set if they don't already exist on Atlas. If you want to force push a certain variable value to update it, use the -overwrite flag.

All the variable values stored on Atlas are encrypted and secured using Vault. We blogged about the architecture of our secure storage system if you want more detail.

The variable values can be updated using the -overwrite flag or via the Atlas website. An example of updating just a single variable foo is shown below:

$ terraform push -var 'foo=bar' -overwrite foo
...

Both the -var and -overwrite flag are required. The -var flag sets the value locally (the exact same process as commands such as apply or plan), and the -overwrite flag tells the push command to update Atlas.

Remote State Requirement

terraform push requires that remote state is enabled. The reasoning for this is simple: terraform push sends your configuration to be managed remotely. For it to keep the state in sync and for you to be able to easily access that state, remote state must be enabled instead of juggling local files.

While terraform push sends your configuration to be managed by Atlas, the remote state backend does not have to be Atlas. It can be anything as long as it is accessible by the public internet, since Atlas will need to be able to communicate to it.

Warning: The credentials for accessing the remote state will be sent up to Atlas as well. Therefore, we recommend you use access keys that are restricted if possible.