🚀📅 Day 54 DevOps Challenge - Working with Terraform Resources 🚀

In our previous blog post, we explored the basics of creating a Terraform script using Blocks and Resources. Today, we will delve deeper into Terraform resources and understand how they play a vital role in defining and managing components of your infrastructure.

Understanding Terraform Resources

Terraform resources represent key components of your infrastructure, such as physical servers, virtual machines, DNS records, S3 buckets, and more. These resources possess attributes that define their properties and behaviors, such as size, location, or domain name.

When defining a resource in Terraform, you specify its type, a unique name, and the attributes that characterize it. Terraform utilizes the resource block to define these resources within your Terraform configuration.

Setting Up `main.tf` File and Provider Block

Before we start creating resources, let's set up the main.tf file and define the Terraform block along with the provider block for AWS. 🏗️

Step 1: Create `main.tf`

Create a file named main.tf and open it in your preferred text editor.

Step 2: Define Terraform Block

Add the Terraform block to specify the required version of Terraform:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "5.19.0"
    }
  }
}

Step 3: Define Provider Block for AWS

Next, define the provider block for AWS. If you've configured AWS CLI using aws configure on your system, Terraform will automatically use those credentials. Note: It's a best practice to use IAM roles or environment variables for your credentials rather than hardcoding them in your configuration files.

provider "aws" {
  region = "ap-south-1"
}

Replace "ap-south-1" with your desired AWS region.

Now that we have set up our Terraform configuration file and provider block, let's proceed to create a security group and an EC2 instance using Terraform. 🛠️

Task 1: Create a Security Group

To allow traffic to the EC2 instance, a security group needs to be created. Let's follow these steps:

Step 1: Add Security Group Configuration

In your main.tf file, add the following code to create a security group:

resource "aws_security_group" "web_server" {
  name_prefix = "web-server-sg"

   ingress {
        from_port   = 80
        to_port     = 80
        protocol    = "tcp"
        cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
    }
    ingress {
        from_port   = 443  
        to_port     = 443  
        protocol    = "tcp"
        cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
    }
    egress {
        from_port   = 0  
        to_port     = 0
        protocol    = "-1"  
        cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
    }
}

Step 2: Initialize and Apply

Run terraform init to initialize the Terraform project. Then, execute terraform apply to create the security group. 🛠️

Task 2: Create an EC2 Instance

Now, let's proceed to create an EC2 instance using Terraform:

Step 1: Add EC2 Instance Configuration

In your main.tf file, append the following code to create an EC2 instance:

resource "aws_instance" "web_server" {
  ami           = "ami-0557a15b87f6559cf"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
  key_name      = "my-key-pair"
  security_groups = [
    aws_security_group.web_server.name
  ]

  user_data = <<-EOF
                    bin/bash
                    sudo apt update
                    sudo apt install nginx -y
                    sudo systemctl start nginx
                    sudo systemctl enable nginx
              EOF
}

Note: Replace the ami and key_name values with your own. Refer to the AWS documentation for a list of available AMIs.