» Forcing Re-creation of Resources (Tainting)

When a resource declaration is modified, Terraform usually attempts to update the existing resource in place (although some changes can require destruction and re-creation, usually due to upstream API limitations).

In some cases, you might want a resource to be destroyed and re-created even when Terraform doesn't think it's necessary. This is usually for objects that aren't fully described by their resource arguments due to side-effects that happen during creation; for example, a virtual machine that configures itself with cloud-init on startup might no longer meet your needs if the cloud-init configuration changes.

• The terraform taint command tells Terraform to destroy and re-create a particular resource during the next apply, regardless of whether its resource arguments would normally require that.

• The terraform untaint command undoes a previous taint, or can preserve a resource that was automatically tainted due to failed provisioners.