Understanding the AWS Provider for Terraform

Reading material and code examples

Understanding the AWS Provider for Terraform

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.

ksatirli/understanding-the-aws-provider-for-terraform