DEVOPS

CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURES
WITH TERRAFORM

Yassine BOUFENNECHE
Enseignant en Informatique

yassine.boufenneche@esme.fr
 CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURES WITH TERRAFORM

In this course

❑ What is Terraform ?
❑ Install Terraform
❑ Configuring Terraform for Azure
❑ Provisioning Azure cloud infrastructure with Terraform

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Definition & Installation of Terraform

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What is Terraform ?

❑ An open-source infrastructure as code (IaC) tool developed by HashiCorp.

❑ Allows us to describe and manage infrastructures (networks, servers, storage, etc.) using
a simple and declarative configuration language.
❑ It supports a wide variety of cloud and infrastructure providers
➢ Azure
➢ AWS
➢ Google Cloud Platform
➢ VMware

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Install Terraform (Linux)

❑ Download Terraform
➢ https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/1.3.9/terraform_1.3.9_linux_amd64.zip
❑ Unzip the archive
➢ unzip terraform_1.3.9_linux_amd64.zip
❑ Move the resulting folder to /usr/local/bin
➢ mv terraform /usr/local/bin
❑ Check the installation
➢ terraform version

Installation guide for other operating systems:

https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/install
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Configuring Terraform for Azure

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Configuring Terraform for Azure

Before writing the Terraform code to provision a cloud infrastructure, we must configure
Terraform to allow the manipulation of resources in an Azure subscription

➢ We need to create a new Azure Service Principal (SP) in Azure Active Directory (AD),
▪ An application user who has permission to manage Azure resources.
➢ For this Azure SP, we have to assign to it the contributing permissions on the
subscription in which we will create resources

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Configuring Terraform for Azure

➢ Creating the Azure SP (1 / 3)

❑ We use az cli to create an Azure SP

❑ Install az cli (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/install-azure-cli)
➢ For Linux: curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash
➢ Docs: https://learn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/cli/azure/reference-index?view=azure-cli-latest
❑ We can use the following template az cli script to create an SP

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Configuring Terraform for Azure
➢ Creating the Azure SP (2 / 3)
❑ Exemple:

❑ This sample script:

➢ creates a new SP, named SPForTerraform, and
➢ gives it the contributor permission on the subscription ID: 8921-1444-...
We just created a SP in Azure AD, and
we have given it permissions to
manipulate the resources of our Azure
subscriptions.

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Configuring Terraform for Azure

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There are three main parts in Terraform project:

➢ main.tf
▪ File that has all the code to build up infrastructure (simple project);
▪ For bigger projects: use several files based on the functionalities.

➢ variables.tf
▪ Stores the declarations for the variables referenced in main.tf.

➢ terraform.tfvars
▪ Define the default values of the variables.

✓ The configuration files written in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL)

✓ They describe the resources and components which are required to run your application.

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Configuring the Terraform provider 1/2
To set Terraform configuration to connect to Azure using our SP:
1. Create a provider.tf which contains the following code:

➢ The provider we are using is azurerm.

➢ The authentication information to Azure is the SP
that has been created.
➢ features block can be used to customize the
behavior of the Azure provider resources.
2. Create file variables.tf:

3. Create file terraform.tfvars:

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Configuring the Terraform provider 2/2
Note: instead of putting azure credentials in files variables.tf and terraform.tfvars, we can put them
into specific Terraform environment variables ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID, ARM_CLIENT_ID,
ARM_CLIENT_SECRET and ARM_TENANT_ID as follows:

Example on Linux:

export ARM_CLIENT_ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
export ARM_CLIENT_SECRET="12345678-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
export ARM_TENANT_ID="10000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
export ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID="20000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"

Example on PowerShell:
$env:ARM_CLIENT_ID = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
$env:ARM_CLIENT_SECRET = "12345678-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
$env:ARM_TENANT_ID = "10000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
$env:ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID = "20000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
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Writing Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
To do this, we will create a rg.tf, network.tf and compute.tf files (in the
same folder that contains provider.tf) with the code of the followings:

➢ An Azure resource group.

➢ A network configuration: a virtual network and a subnet.
➢ In the subnet, we will create a virtual machine that has a public IP address to be
publicly available.

Documentation regarding the Terraform syntax:

https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/v1.1.x/configuration-0-11/resources

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure

1. The code that provides the resource group: [ file rg.tf]

Any piece of Terraform code is composed of the same syntax model:

▪ A type of resource or data block
▪ A name of the resource to be managed (azurerm_resource_group)
▪ An internal Terraform ID (rg)
▪ A list of properties that correspond to the real properties of the
resource (that is, name and location)

This code uses the azurerm_resource_group Terraform resource and will provision a resource
group, named devopsRg, that will be stored in the West Europe location.
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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
2. The code for the network part: [ file network.tf]

▪ we create the code for a VNet, devops-vnet,

and inside it, we create a subnet called
devops-subnet
▪ The VNet and subnet are the property of the
resource group with
azurerm_resource_group.rg.name, which tells
Terraform that the VNet and subnet will be created
just after the resource group.
▪ The subnet is dependent on its VNet with the use
of the azurerm_virtual_network.vnet.name value.

➢ https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/virtual_network
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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
3. Writing the code of the virtual machine, which is composed of the following:
a. A network interface b. A public IP address
c. An Azure Storage object for the diagnostic boot (boot information logs) d. A virtual machine
3.a Code for the network interface: [ file compute.tf]

➢ We use an azurerm_network_interface
block. For it:
▪ We configure the the name, region, resource
group, and IP configuration with the
dynamic IP address of the network interface.

https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/azurerm/r/network_interface

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
3. Writing the code of the virtual machine, which is composed of the following:

3.b Code for the public IP address: [ file compute.tf]

➢ We use an azurerm_public_ip block.

For it, we
▪ configure the dynamic allocation of the IP
address and the DNS label.

➢ https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/public_ip

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
3. Writing the code of the virtual machine, which is composed of the following:

3.c Code for the storage account: [ file compute.tf]

LRS: Local Redundant Storage

Data is locally replicated in an Azure
datacenter

➢ We use an azurerm_storage_account block. In it, we

➢ configure the name, region, resource group, and type of storage, which, in our case, is Standard LRS.

https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/storage_account
https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/storage_blob
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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
3. Writing the code of the virtual machine, which is composed of the following:
3.c code for the Ubuntu virtual machine : [ file compute.tf]
▪ contains the ID of the network interface created earlier

➢ We use an azurerm_virtual_machine block.

For it:
➢ we configure the name, size (Standard_B1s),
reference to the network_interface
Terraform object, and the type of virtual
machine operating system (Ubuntu).

https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashic
orp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/virtual_m
achine

// Code of the next page goes here …

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure
3. Writing the code of the virtual machine (continued):
storage_os_disk {
name = "devops-osdisk"
managed_disk_type = "Standard_LRS"
caching = "ReadWrite"
create_option = "FromImage"
}
os_profile {
computer_name = "VMDEVOPS"
admin_username = "esmeuser"
admin_password = "esme123*"
}
os_profile_linux_config {
disable_password_authentication = false
}
boot_diagnostics {
enabled = true
storage_uri = azurerm_storage_account.stor.primary_blob_endpoint
}
}

https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/virtual_machine 22
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Running Terraform for deployment

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure

❑ Before execution, first, we need to provide authentication (if it’s not done yet) with the Azure SP
to ensure that Terraform can manage the Azure resources.
➢ We can either set the environment variables specific to Terraform to contain the information of the SP
created earlier in the Configuring Terraform for Azure section
➢ Or we can use an az cli script.

❑ The following script exports the four Terraform environment variables in the Linux OS:

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure

❑ Initialization
➢ terraform init

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure

❑ Previewing the changes

➢ terraform plan

The role of this step is to preview the

changes made to the infrastructure before
applying them.

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Terraform scripts to deploy an Azure infrastructure

❑ Applying the changes

➢ terraform apply

This command let us apply the changes to

our infrastructure.

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Exercise

Using Terraform and azurerm:

1. Create a resource group named labRG and identified by rgroup

2. Create a virtual network labNetwork with address space 10.0.0.0/16
3. Create two subnets named subnet1 and subnet2, identified by sn1 and sn2. The subnets should
have addresses 10.0.1.0/24 and 10.0.2.0/24
4. Create in each subnet an Ubuntu VM
5. Turn on one VM and send a PING request for it
6. Login to a VM using SSH and credentials you configured for accessing it
7. Shut down the VM
8. Delete the entire resource group you created, and the one created automatically also.

Note: do not create a storage account.

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