I have made a minor change (comments only) to my AWS EC2 user_data bootstrap bash script. Terraform has detected this, and now wants to replace the EC2 with a new one. But this is a live service, and I'd rather not have to take it down, backup all the data, build a new server, and then restore the data - just to keep terraform happy!
Is there a simpler way of fixing this, by somehow bringing the code/statefile/aws in line so that I can use terraform to make other changes to the environment, but not have to worry about blowing away this server?
I've even tried editing the user data from the AWS console to try to bring it inline with what I think the changes should be, but this hasn't worked.
For now I'm using -target for specific changes, but this is probably not sustainable in the long run.
If you want to prevent EC2 instance replacement when you changed your user_data you need to set user_data_replace_on_change = false:
user_data_replace_on_change- (Optional) When used in combination with user_data or user_data_base64 will trigger a destroy and recreate when set to true. Defaults to false if not set.
This option was initially implemented here