Day-1 of Terraform Certification Journey

Terraform is a powerful Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that allows you to define and manage infrastructure using configuration files. In this blog, we’ll explore how to use Terraform to provision an Amazon EC2 instance, one of the most common use cases for AWS.

Why Use Terraform for AWS EC2 Instances?

1. Automation: Define your EC2 instance configuration once and reuse it multiple times.

2. Consistency: Avoid manual errors by maintaining the same infrastructure state across different environments.

3. Scalability: Easily scale your infrastructure by tweaking configuration files.

Prerequisites

Before we start, ensure the following:

• AWS Account: You’ll need access to AWS with programmatic access (AWS Access Key and Secret Key).

• Terraform Installed: Install Terraform on your system.

• IAM Role: Ensure the role has necessary permissions like EC2FullAccess, VPCFullAccess

Step 1: Set Up Your Terraform Configuration

File Structure

Create a folder for your project and include these files:

• provider.tf: Define the list of provider details

• main.tf: Main configuration file.

• variables.tf: Define variables.

• outputs.tf: Capture useful outputs like the public IP of the EC2 instance.

Provider file:

provider "aws" {
  region     = "us-east-1"
}

Main.tf

resource "aws_instance" "example" {
  tags = {
    Name = "MyTerraform-Instance"
  }
  ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0" # Amazon Linux 2 AMI
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
  key_name = "your-key-pair"
  availability_zone = "us-east-1a"
  vpc_security_group_ids = "sg-0abcd1234efgh5678"
  root_block_device {
    volume_size = 10
  }
  count = 1
}

Outputs.tf

output "instance_public_ip" {
  value = aws_instance.example.public_ip
}

Step 2: Initialize Terraform

Run the following command to initialize Terraform in your project folder:

terraform init

This downloads the necessary providers and sets up your workspace.

Step 3: Plan Your Infrastructure

To preview what Terraform will create, execute:

terraform plan

Review the output to ensure the configurations are as expected.

Step 4: Apply the Configuration

Run the apply command to provision the EC2 instance:

terraform apply

Terraform will prompt for confirmation. Type yes to proceed. Once complete, Terraform will output the public IP address of your EC2 instance.

Step 5: Clean Up Resources

When you're done, you can destroy the resources to avoid unnecessary charges:

terraform destroy

Terraform will terminate the EC2 instance and delete associated resources.

Real-Time Use Case

Imagine a scenario where you need to provision multiple EC2 instances for a development environment. Instead of manually launching instances through the AWS Console, you can use Terraform to automate and replicate the infrastructure setup within minutes.

Conclusion

Terraform simplifies cloud infrastructure management, making it a preferred choice for automating EC2 provisioning. By following this guide, you’ve learned how to launch an EC2 instance, customize its configuration, and manage it efficiently.

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