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Terraform (and AzureRM Provider) Version

> terraform -v
Terraform v0.12.18
+ provider.azuread v0.7.0
+ provider.azurerm v1.39.0
+ provider.null v2.1.2

Affected Resource(s)

azurerm provider

Terraform Configuration Files

  backend "azurerm" {
    resource_group_name   = "grpX"
    storage_account_name  = "accX"
    container_name        = "cntX"
    key                   = "keyX"
  }

  provider "azurerm" {

    subscription_id = "<myid>"
  }

Debug Output

N/A

Panic Output

N/A

Expected Behavior

TF should attempt to retrieve keys for the subscription identified in the azurerm provider configuration explicitly.

Actual Behavior

TF attempts to retrieve keys for the default subscription of the azure cli

Steps to Reproduce

1. have an account with access to 2 subscriptions a1 and b1
2. have tf that has b1 as the subscription with the remote state
3. login with the az cli
4. az account set -s a1
5. terraform init

you'll get an error about not being able to retrieve keys. running the following works around the issue.

1. az account set -s b1
2. terraform init

Important Factoids

References

• https://www.terraform.io/docs/backends/types/azurerm.html - says subscription_id is only used for SP and MSI methods, but i'm using cli. maybe it's just the docs that need updating?