Terraform Workshop

This is the code for my Terraform Workshop.

Please note that I routinely make destructive changes (a.k.a git push -f) to this repository. If you wish to keep a copy around, I highly recommend you fork this, and git pull upstream judiciously.

Agenda

• The place for, and benefits of "Everything as Code" alongside GitOps
• Terraform's architecture
• Terraform 101
  • Introduction to HCL
  • What are providers?
  • Initializing terraform and providers
• Dive right in! Creating your first resource in AWS using Terraform
• Understanding references, dependencies
• apply-ing terraform
• Using output and data in your terraform scripts
• Variables and the HCL type-system
• DRY with Terraform modules
• Understanding how Terraform manages state
• Using S3 as a backend
• Collaboration using Terraform
• Terraform ecosystem, testing, and GitOps
• Closing arguments, final Q/A, discussion

Setup

While this repository is a tutorial aimed at teaching Terraform, AWS setup can be arduous, and non-deterministic across audiences, especially if anyone chooses to use their organizational credentials (Hello IAM!) and setup.

To avoid this, this tutorial uses the absolutely fantastic LocalStack project to emulate the AWS API locally. Not only does this make it easier to set up for the workshop, it a zero-cost solution for attendees, and eliminates the risk that they accidentally leave resources running in the cloud.

It also makes the setup trivial. Please see the following sections:

Installation

You will need the following installed

• Terraform
• AWS CLI
• Docker
• A good text editor. I highly recommend VS Code.
• Clone this repository

Set up

Create a specific profile for LocalStack

1. Open a terminal window

2. Run the following command:

   aws configure --profile localstack

3. Enter the following details for the localstack profile:

   • AWS Access Key ID: Enter test
   • AWS Secret Access Key: Enter test
   • Default region name: Enter us-east-1
   • Default output format: Enter json

4. The AWS CLI will create a new profile named localstack in the AWS credentials file (located at ~/.aws/credentials on Linux/Mac or %USERPROFILE%\.aws\credentials on Windows) as well as storing your profile preferences in ~/.aws/config.

   This is VERY IMPORTANT. Edit the localstack profile in ~/.aws/config, and the add the following line at the bottom of the localstack profile:

   [profile localstack]
   region=us-east-1
   output=json
   endpoint_url = http://localhost:4566 # <- ADD THIS LINE

5. Run the following:

   docker pull ubuntu:24.04
   docker pull ubuntu:23.10
   docker tag ubuntu:24.04 localstack-ec2/ubuntu-24-04-ami:ami-edbfe74c41f8
   docker tag ubuntu:23.10 localstack-ec2/ubuntu-23-10-ami:ami-77081d4f1e72

Testing your setup

In the directory where you cloned this repository:

# cd /path/to/terraform-workshop
❯ docker compose up --build
# You should see ...
[+] Running 1/0
 ✔ Container localstack-main  Created 0.0s
Attaching to localstack-main
localstack-main  |
localstack-main  | LocalStack version: 3.7.1
localstack-main  | LocalStack build git hash: d4f2409a7
localstack-main  |
localstack-main  | Ready.

In another terminal, navigate, again, to the location where you cloned this repository:

# initialize terraform
terraform init
# see if terraform can perform it's duties
terraform apply -auto-approve

# if all goes well, you should something like
Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

If all that works, you are golden. Go back to the first terminal

# Use `Ctrl-c` to stop compose
# Clean up afterwards
docker compose down -v

Woot! You are all set. See you soon.