How to Use Terraform with AWS

Introduction

I used to hear people talk about Terraform and cloud, but I didn’t really understand what it was. So, I decided to research and practice to learn how to use it. Today, I’ll guide you through using Terraform and share some of my lab practices along the way.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to use Terraform to provision infrastructure on AWS. Terraform is an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tool that helps automate and manage cloud resources effectively.

In this example, we will create:

• A VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
• A Subnet inside the VPC
• An EC2 instance in the subnet

Prerequisites

• AWS account: Make sure you have access to an AWS account.
• Install Terraform: Download Terraform and install it on your machine.
• Install AWS CLI: Download at https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi and configure your credentials:
   

  aws configure


  Enter your Access Key, Secret Key, Region, and Output format.

  Note:
  – AWS Account + IAM account wil need to be granted as “Programatic” option to run the AWS Cli
  – Make sure you enter the correctly AWS credential, and you can check via the command: aws sts get-caller-identity . if it lists the correct account then you can play with terraform . In my case, i got this
  

Step 1: Set up Your Project Directory

1. Create a new folder for your Terraform project:
   
2. Inside this folder, create a file named :main.tf

Step 2: Create the Terraform Configuration File

Open the  filemain.tf we created above and prepare the code below to create VPC, Subetnet and EC2:

# Configure the AWS Provide, this part is always be required when starts with terraform
provider "aws" {
region = "us-east-1" # Change this to your desired AWS region
}
# Create a VPC
resource “aws_vpc” “main_vpc” {
cidr_block = “10.0.0.0/16”
tags = {
Name = “MyMainVPC”
}
}
# Create a Subnet inside the VPC
resource “aws_subnet” “public_subnet” {
vpc_id = aws_vpc.main_vpc.id
cidr_block = “10.0.1.0/24”
availability_zone = “us-east-1a”
tags = {
Name = “PublicSubnet”
}
}
# Create a Security Group to define access SSH. This example i use Linux so i use port 22, for Windows then port 3389 will be required for the RDP
resource “aws_security_group” “ssh_sg” {
vpc_id = aws_vpc.main_vpc.id

ingress {
from_port = 22
to_port = 22
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”]
}

tags = {
Name = “AllowSSH”
}
}
# Create an EC2 instance, this part allow us to define the AMI that we can lookup from AWS portal, it can be any OS available from AWS
resource “aws_instance” “web_server” {
ami = “ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0” # Amazon Linux 2 AMI ID
instance_type = “t2.micro”
subnet_id = aws_subnet.public_subnet.id
vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.ssh_sg.id]

tags = {

Name = "MyWebServer"
}
}


Note:

The line “ami = “AMI model” :

Step 3: Initialize Terraform

1. Open your terminal and navigate to the project directory.
2. Run the following command to initialize the Terraform working directory:
    

   terraform init


Step 4: Review the Execution Plan

Before applying the changes, it’s a good idea to review what Terraform will create:

terraform plan

You’ll see a summary of all the resources Terraform will create.

Note:  This step is always necessary to review the change, to avoid applying the mistaken

Step 5: Apply the Terraform Configuration

Now, let’s apply the configuration to create the resources on AWS:

terraform apply

it will looks like this:

 

 

This tutorial will skip the part to assign elastic IP address or a number of EC2 need to be created. I wil add them in another parts

Step 6: Verify the Resources

1. Go to the AWS Management Console.
2. Navigate to the VPC and EC2 sections to confirm that the VPC, Subnet, Security Group, and EC2 instance have been created.

Step 7: Clean Up the Resources (Optional)

If you no longer need these resources, you can destroy them using Terraform:

confirm removing the resource

Note: