Understanding the AWS Provider for Terraform

Reading material and code examples

Table of Contents

• Understanding the AWS Provider for Terraform
  • Table of Contents
  • Reading material
    • HashiCorp Configuration Language
    • Docker Provider for Terraform
    • AWS Provider for Terraform
    • Code Quality
    • Visualizing resources
    • Importing resources
    • Modules
  • Author Information
  • License

Reading material

This section is a collection of links that will help you make the most of today's session.

HashiCorp Configuration Language

• repository: hashicorp/hcl

Terraform Basics

• CLI commands terraform.io/docs/commands/index.html
• variables and type constraints: terraform.io/docs/configuration/variables.html
• variable definition files: terraform.io/docs/configuration/variables.html
• information about Terraform State: terraform.io/docs/state/index.html

Docker Provider for Terraform

• ChangeLog on GitHub
• documentation:
  • for the provider can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/docker
  • for the docker_image resource can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/docker/r/image.html
  • for the docker_container resource can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/docker/r/container.html

AWS Provider for Terraform

• releases weekly
• ChangeLog on GitHub
• documentation:
  • for the provider can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/aws
  • for the aws_instance resource can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/aws/r/instance.html
  • for the aws_ebs_volume resource can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/aws/r/ebs_volume.html
  • for the aws_volume_attachment resource can be found on terraform.io/docs/providers/aws/r/volume_attachment.html
• Learn Guide: Build infrastructure learn.hashicorp.com/terraform/getting-started/build
• Build your own AMIs with Packer: packer.io/docs/builders/amazon/

Code Quality

Before plan and apply, always clean up your code:

• use terraform fmt to rewrite Terraform configuration files to a canonical format and style.
• use terraform validate to validate the configuration syntax and internal consistency
• use pre-commit to run more checks
  • community member @antonbabenko/ built and maintains pre-commit-terraform

For more advanced use-cases, have a look at tflint. This application can alert you to provider-specific issues such as defining a non-existant t12.micro instance type.

Visualizing resources

Visualize Terraform-managed resources using the terraform graph command:

terraform graph \
  | dot -Tpng > "infrastructure.png"

This uses the dot library to render the .digraph file into a PNG image (infrastructure.png).

blast-radius from Patrick McMurchie is another great way of visualizing your resources.

Importing resources

• use the terraform import command:

Create a resource in your Terraform code:

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "hug_demo" {
  bucket = "hug-demo"
}

Then run the terraform import command:

terraform import \
    aws_s3_bucket.hug_demo "hug-demo"

specify the Terraform-native resource (aws_s3_bucket.hug_demo) as well as the provider resource (hug-demo)

• use Terraformer for importing large sets of resources

Modules

• use modules as building blocks
• module documentation: terraform.io/docs/configuration/modules.html
• module registry: registry.terraform.io
• Learn Guide: Modules on learn.hashicorp.com/terraform/modules/modules-overview

Author Information

This repository is maintained by Kerim Satirli.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License").

You may obtain a copy of the License at apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, without WARRANTIES or conditions of any kind, either express or implied.

See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.