Terraform Custom Provider for Alibaba Cloud

This Terraform custom provider is designed for own use case scenario.

Supported Versions

Terraform version	minimum provider version	maxmimum provider version
>= 1.3.x	0.1.1	latest

Requirements

• Terraform 1.3.x
• Go 1.19 (to build the provider plugin)

Local Installation

1. Run make file make install-local-custom-provider to install the provider under ~/.terraform.d/plugins.

2. The provider source should be change to the path that configured in the Makefile:

   terraform {
     required_providers {
       st-alicloud = {
         source = "example.local/myklst/st-alicloud"
       }
     }
   }
   
   provider "st-alicloud" {
     region = "cn-hongkong"
   }
   

Why Custom Provider

This custom provider exists due to some of the resources and data sources in the official AliCloud Terraform provider may not fulfill the requirements of some scenario. The reason behind every resources and data sources are stated as below:

Resources

• st-alicloud_alidns_gtm_instance

  The original reason to write this resource is official AliCloud Terraform provider does not support creating GTM (Global Traffic Manager) instance on AliCloud international account using Terraform. As we developing on the resource, we added few more features which are useful in our use case, which includes:

  • setting the renewal status to NotRenewal when destroying the resource.

  • allowing changing of renewal period and status without recreating the GTM instsance.

• st-alicloud_alidns_record_weight

  Official AliCloud Terraform provider does not have the resource to modify DNS records weight.

• st-alicloud_ram_user_group_attachment

  The official AliCloud Terraform provider's resource alicloud_ram_group_membership will remove all other attached users for the target group, which may cause a problem where Terraform may delete those users attached outside from Terraform.

• st-alicloud_ram_policy

  This resource is designed to handle policy content that exceeds the limit of 6144 characters. It provides functionality to create policies by splitting the content into smaller segments that fit within the limit, enabling the management and combination of these segments to form the complete policy. Finally, the policy will be attached to the relevant user.

• st-alicloud_cms_alarm_rule

  The official AliCloud Terraform provider's resource alicloud_cms_group_metric_rule does not support adding alarm rules into application groups based on expression-based creation.

  For namespaces and metric inputs, please refer to: Alicloud Alarm Metric List

• st-alicloud_alidns_instance

  The official AliCloud Terraform provider's resource alicloud_alidns_instance will destroy and create a new instance everytime when upgrading or downgrading.

• st-alicloud_alidns_domain_attachment

  The official AliCloud Terraform provider's resource alicloud_dns_domain_attachment accept input of a list of domains. There will be an issue when upgrading a batch of domains when the existing attachment is more than 100 domains. The official resources will first destroy all the domains and re-add the new one together with the existing one. The resources will hit timeout during adding of new domains and make some of the domains not re-add back.

• st-alicloud_cms_system_event_contact_group_attachment

  Update:

  • The official AliCloud Terraform provider's resource alicloud_cms_event_rule is fixed and currently supports the binding of the created system event rule to the contact group.
  • Users are not encouraged to use this resource as it will no longer be maintained.

• st-alicloud_ddoscoo_webconfig_ssl_attachment

  This resource is designed to associate a SSL certificate to a website/domain before being added into Anti-DDoS and Modify TLS Security Settings as AliCloud Terraform Provider does not support the SSL binding & modify TLS Security Settings operation.

• st-alicloud_ddoscoo_webconfig_ai_protect_config

  This resource is designed to modify antiddos Web AI Protect Mode Config from Protection to Warning for a website/domain before being added into Anti-DDoS webconfig as AliCloud Terraform Provider does not support the modify AI Protect Mode operation.

• st-alicloud_aliadb_resource_group_bind_user

  This resource is to bind user to a resource group. Binding user to a resource group allow user access to different resource groups.

• st-alicloud_emr_metric_auto_scaling_rules

  This resource is designed to create auto scaling rules for AliCloud E-MapReduce cluster as the provider's resource alicloud_emrv2_cluster does not provide the option to create auto scaling rules for nodes. (Note: Only task nodes are eligible for auto scaling)

• st-alicloud_ess_clb_default_server_group_attachment

  This resource is designed to attach an auto scaling group (ESS) with a list of load balancers (CLB) default server group.

• st-alicloud_cs_kubernetes_permission

  This resource is designed to attach a list of clusters' kubernetes role permissions (CS) with a (RAM) user, and to replace the official Alicloud Terraform Provider's resource alicloud_cs_kubernetes_permissions. The official resource will overwrite all the permissions which is attached with the user, which means it will remove the permissions from other clusters.

• st-alicloud_service_mesh_user_permission

  This resource is designed to attach a list of ASM clusters' permissions with a (RAM) user, and to replace the official Alicloud Terraform Provider's resource alicloud_service_mesh_user_permission. The official resource will overwrite all the permissions which is attached with the user, which means it will remove the permissions from other ASM clusters.

Data Sources

• st-alicloud_ddoscoo_domain_resources

  • Official AliCloud Terraform provider does not support querying the CNAME of AntiDDoS domain resources through alicloud_ddoscoo_domain_resources.

  • Added client_config block to allow overriding the Provider configuration.

• st-alicloud_ddoscoo_instances

  Official AliCloud Terraform provider does not support querying the EIP of AntiDDoS instance resources through alicloud_ddoscoo_instances.

• st-alicloud_cdn_domain

  • Official AliCloud Terraform provider does not have the data source to query the CNAME of CDN domain.

  • Added client_config block to allow overriding the Provider configuration.

• st-alicloud_slb_load_balancers

  • The tags parameter of AliCloud API DescribeLoadBalancers will return all load balancers when any one of the tags are matched. This may be a problem when the user wants to match exactly all given tags, therefore this data source will filter once more after listing the load balancers from AliCloud API to match all the given tags.

    The example bahaviors of AliCloud API DescribeLoadBalancers:

    Load Balancer	Tags	Given tags: { "location": "office" "env": "test" }
    load-balancer-A	{ "location": "office" "env" : "test" }	Matched (work as expected)
    load-balancer-B	{ "location": "office" "env" : "prod" }	Matched (should not be matched as the env is prod)

  • Added client_config block to allow overriding the Provider configuration.

• st-alicloud_cs_user_kubeconfig

  • The original data source alicloud_cs_cluster_credential has limitations on the following configuration scenarios:

    • Unable to query Kubeconfig of another RAM user using the same Terraform provider as it has different credentials.

  • Added client_config block to allow overriding the Provider configuration.

References

• Website: https://www.terraform.io
• Terraform Plugin Framework: https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/tutorials/providers-plugin-framework
• AliCloud official Terraform provider: https://github.com/aliyun/terraform-provider-alicloud