Terraform Exploration

Terraform allows you to write infrastructure as code. This is my exploration of terraform. Follow this getting started guide for AWS.

1. Follow instructions on Sage jumpcloud to access the aws cli. Must set up a profile in ~/.aws/credentials.

2. Initialize terraform

    terraform init
   

3. Terraform has an auto formatter that will automatically format the code and you can validate the structure as well.

    terraform fmt
    terraform validate
   

4. Create instance

    cd learn-terraform-aws-instance
    terrafrom apply
   

   Terraform stores the state either locally or remotely. By default, it is stored locally in a file but the state can actually be stored in terraform cloud or terraform enterprise.

5. Remove instance

    terraform destroy
   

6. Terraform configuration can be split into different files

   • main.tf: Houses the resources to spin up
   • provider.tf: Determines what provider to use (GCP, AWS…)
   • backend.tf: Determines what backend to use (local, remote)
   • variable.tf: Resources can take variables
   • outputs.tf: Resources can have outputs

Terraform cloud

Followed instructions here to get started.

• When using terraform cloud, you can’t have a local terraform.tfstate
• Two options to run terraform:
  • Change the settings to run the applies locally, to only have workspaces save the state.
  • Provide env variables to allow terraform cloud to access AWS account. (Don’t like this)