Terraform Basics commands - Getting started series (part 3)

Now, Terraform has a really simple syntax, and this makes it Easy to use

Let's talk about the four most used commands

terraform init
terraform validate
terraform apply
terraform destroy

Get Secret Key From AWS

Click on create access key

Check command line interface (CLI)

and check on the checkbox, and click on Next

ill suggest downloading the .csv file, for save keeping

Note: Access keys and secret keys are very secret, please don't share them with the public

Note before starting

Please create a folder on your machine and open it with vs code (the code editor I will be using)

I created a folder called terraform and create a main.tf file

Terraform files have a .tf extension

Terraform Init

The first command is terraform init, this command initializes our terraform project and downloads the recommended provider, as we have discussed previously terraform works with a lot of popular providers, in this article we will be using AWS

Here am using the provider block to initialize this project with aws, and am using the access_key and secret_key we generated previously to authenticate my self, to my AWS account

This should be done, after some time and, and we should see a new file and a folder

.terraform
.terraform.lock.hcl

These simply hold, the provider configuration, we downloaded and the state of our terraform configuration,

We won't need to touch or edit these files, there are for terraform and its uses it to basically keep things organized

Creating an ubuntu EC2 instance with terraform

Now that we have initialized our instance with terraform, let's do a demo of creating an EC2 instance to work through the other commands, the syntax can be seen below

resource "aws_instance" "ubuntu_server" {
  ami = "ami-0557a15b87f6559cf"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
}

Let's break this down a bit

we starting with resource key word, because we are trying to create a resource in AWS, this would be the same if we trying to create an s3 bucket

the next thing in quotes "ubuntu_server", is a terraform local name that we can refer to this resource in terraform later

Am selecting the ami from the AWS console

And am selecting the t2.micro type of instance to stay within the free tier

Next lets check if our terraform configuration is correct with terraform validate

Terraform validate

This command just makes sure, we have a configuration file valid to how terraform wants it, this is not required, but it provides a good check

Next, we run a plan to see the Infrature terraform would be creating for us

terraform validate

Terraform Plan

Terraform plans show the resources terraform would be creating from our configuration

Most resources would be known after an apply

terrform apply

Terraform apply

Terraform apply applies the change from our plan

this would begin to create an instance for us...

when its done, log in to the console and check your instances, you will see an EC2 instance created for us

IAC is wonderful isn't it 😊......

Finally, lets Destroy our infrastructure, with terraform destroy

Terraform destroy

terraform destroy

just confirm a yes, and we should see our instance getting shut down

That's it for Part three

Once again, you can reach me on Linkedin, thanks for your time