Terraform Learning Journey: Day 1 – Launching EC2 Instance on AWS with Terraform

Welcome to Day 1 of our Terraform Daily Learning Series! 🚀
Today, we will walk through creating and launching an EC2 instance on AWS using Terraform — the industry-leading tool for Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Let's dive right in. 🔥

🧠 What is Terraform?

Terraform is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool created by HashiCorp.
It allows you to define your infrastructure in simple, human-readable configuration files, and then deploy and manage it automatically.

Today, our goal is simple:
➡️ Use Terraform to spin up a virtual server (EC2 instance) on AWS.

🛠️ Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have the following:

• ✅ An AWS account

• ✅ AWS CLI installed and configured (aws configure)

• ✅ Terraform installed (v1.0+ recommended)

• ✅ Basic knowledge of terminal/command prompt usage

📁 Project Setup

Let’s set up our project in a clean structure:

mkdir terraform-ec2-day1
cd terraform-ec2-day1
touch main.tf

We will be writing our Terraform configuration inside main.tf.

📝 Writing the Terraform Code

Here is the full Terraform configuration to launch a basic EC2 instance:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "5.96.0"
    }
  }
}

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

resource "aws_instance" "demo" {
  ami           = "ami-0e449927258d45bc4" # Amazon Linux 2 AMI
  instance_type = "t3.micro"

  tags = {
    Name = "demoServer"
  }
}

✅ Explanation:

• terraform block: Specifies that we are using the AWS provider.

• provider block: Configures AWS provider with us-east-1 region.

• resource block: Defines an EC2 instance with a specific Amazon Machine Image (AMI) and instance type.

🧹 Initialize the Terraform Project

In your project directory, run:

terraform init

This command initializes Terraform, downloads the AWS provider plugin, and sets up the project.

You should see output like:

Terraform has been successfully initialized!

📋 Plan the Deployment

Before actually creating resources, you can preview what Terraform intends to do:

terraform plan

This will show you an execution plan where Terraform details the resources it will create.

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🚀 Apply and Launch the Instance

Now, deploy the infrastructure:

terraform apply

Terraform will ask for a confirmation:

Do you want to perform these actions?
  Terraform will perform the actions described above.
  Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.

Enter a value: yes

Type yes and hit Enter.

🎉 Your EC2 instance is now being created!

🔍 Verify the Instance

• Go to your AWS Management Console

• Navigate to EC2 > Instances

• You should see an instance running with the tag Name: demoServer.

  

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📂 What Happens After terraform apply?

After you successfully apply the configuration, Terraform creates and updates several files in your project directory:

🧹 Cleaning Up (Optional)

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

terraform destroy

Type yes when prompted.

🙏 Thank You for Reading!

Thank you for taking the time to read today's blog!
I hope you found this guide helpful and are excited to continue your Terraform journey. 🚀
Stay tuned for the next part where we will dive even deeper into building real-world infrastructure — one day at a time!

Feel free to leave your thoughts, questions, or feedback in the comments.
Let’s learn and grow together! 🌱