README.md

Terraform vra chef example

A very basic Terraform example to spin up a server on a vRa host and run Chef on it.

I've left this repo in a working state as an example to build more advanced automation off of. I've made it as generic as possible, parameterized everything, etc. There are still a few places where you need your own files - specifically, the <username>.pem file that is created by the chef server when setting up your chef account. I don't know of a way around this at this time. I'm sure someone smarter than me already knows the answer - please share here!

The chef provisioning is tested and it works!

How to use this repo

1. Clone it down to your local.

2. Install Terraform 11, and make sure it's on your $PATH

   • As of this writing, the vra7 driver was not compatible with TF 12, so stick with 11 for now.

3. Set your environment variables: see my powershell profile gist

4. Copy your chef private key into the local repo:

   cp ~/.chef/<username>.pem .

5. Run terraform init

   1. This will automatically install the vra7 provider driver for you.

6. Run terraform plan

7. Run terraform apply -auto-approve

8. Bask in the ease with which you can now spin up any number of vRa machines!

Tips and Tricks

1. The server_count default is 1. To change this:

   1. Edit main.tf or variables.tf depending on your needs, or
   2. Run TF with a command-line variable argument:

   terraform [plan, apply] -var server_count=10

   3. This applies to any variable defined in variables.tf.

Next Steps

1. Get Chef working as a Terraform Provisioner
2. Update node names and other identifying info to be compatible with multi-machine runs.
   1. I haven't tested that it doesn't work, but i have a feeling it'll collide with itself without dynamically-incrementing names/id's.
3. Get and POC production permisisons and workflow