Deploying Your First Server with Terraform: A Beginner's Guide

Deploying infrastructure using code for developer’s isn’t just smart but cool😎 Let’s do this in 5 simple steps.

1. Set Up Terraform

   Confirm that terraform is installed in your machine using: terraform -version

You should get your terraform version output such as👇

2. Define Your Infrastructure

   Create a terraform configuration file (main.tf)

   Define the aws provider block:

    provider "aws" {
      region = "us-east-2"
    }
   

   Specify the web server resource block:

    data "aws_vpc" "default" {
      default = true
    }
   
    data "aws_subnet" "default_az1" {
      availability_zone = "us-east-2a" # Replace with your desired AZ
      filter {
        name   = "vpc-id"
        values = [data.aws_vpc.default.id]
      }
      default_for_az = true
    }
   
    resource "aws_security_group" "instance" {
      name        = "terraform-example-instance"
      description = "Allow inbound traffic on port 8080"
   
      ingress {
        from_port   = 8080
        to_port     = 8080
        protocol    = "tcp"
        cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"] # Consider restricting this to your IP address
      }
   
      egress {
        from_port   = 0
        to_port     = 0
        protocol    = "-1" # All protocols
        cidr_blocks = ["0.0.0.0/0"]
      }
    }
   
    resource "aws_instance" "example" {
      ami                         = "ami-0fb653ca2d3203ac1" # Replace with a valid AMI for us-east-2
      instance_type               = "t2.micro"
      vpc_security_group_ids      = [aws_security_group.instance.id]
      subnet_id                   = data.aws_subnet.default_az1.id
      user_data                   = <<-EOF
        #!/bin/bash
        # Install busybox (if not already present)
        apt-get update -y
        apt-get install -y busybox
   
        # Create index.html
        echo "Hello, World from Terraform!" > /var/www/html/index.html
   
        # Start web server, redirecting output to a log file
        nohup busybox httpd -f -p 8080 -h /var/www/html/ > /tmp/httpd.log 2>&1 &
   
        echo "Web server started.  Check /tmp/httpd.log for errors." > /tmp/startup.log
      EOF
      user_data_replace_on_change = true
      tags = {
        Name = "terraform-example"
      }
    }
   
    output "public_ip" {
      value       = aws_instance.example.public_ip
      description = "The public IP address of the web server"
    }
   

   

   3. Initialize Terraform

      Run terraform init to initialize the working directory.

      

4. Plan and Apply

To preview the changes, run terraform plan

To deploy your web-server, run terraform apply -auto-approve

5. Verify Deployment

   Navigate to the cloud provider console and on the top-right select where the web-server was deployed (us-east-2); the search for “EC2” and it will be displayed as running under instances.

Lastly, SSH into the instance to confirm the web-server is running.😎

See you in the next one.🛫