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

🕊️ In this article, will explain in detail on provider block, resource block, and deployment of web servers using Terraform 🕊️

🎯 Synopsis:

⭐Understand what a provider block and a resource block are, and learn how to design and deploy a web server on AWS

🎯 Flow Diagram:

Web Server

🎯Provider block:

⭐Terraform code is written in the HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) in files with the extension (.tf). It is a declarative language, so your goal is to describe the infrastructure you want, and Terraform will figure out how to create it. Terraform can create infrastructure across a wide variety of platforms, or what it calls providers, including AWS and many others.

⭐The first step to using Terraform is typically to configure the provider(s) you want to use. Create an empty folder and put a file in it called main. tf that contains the following contents:

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

⭐This tells Terraform that you are going to be using AWS as your provider and that you want to deploy your infrastructure into the us-east-2 region.

Terraform plug-in architecture

🎯Resource block:

⭐For each type of provider, there are many different kinds of resources that you can create, such as servers, databases, and load balancers.

 resource "<PROVIDER>_<TYPE>" "<NAME>" {
 [CONFIG ...]
 }

⭐where PROVIDER is the name of a provider (e.g., aws), TYPE is the type of resource to create in that provider (e.g., instance), NAME is an identifier you can use throughout the Terraform code to refer to this resource (e.g., my_instance), and CONFIG consists of one or more arguments that are specific to that resource.

resource "aws_instance" "example" {
  ami = "ami-0fb653ca2d3203ac1"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
 }

🎯Deploying a Single Web Server:

⭐The goal is to deploy the simplest web architecture possible: a single web server that can respond to HTTP requests

 resource "aws_instance" "example" {
  ami = "ami-0fb653ca2d3203ac1"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
  vpc_security_group_ids = [aws_security_group.instance.id]
  user_data = <<-EOF
              #!/bin/bash
 echo "Hello, World" > index.html
 nohup busybox httpd -f -p 8080 &
 EOF
  user_data_replace_on_change = true
  tags = {
    Name = "terraform-example"
  }
 }

🎯 Deployment of Web-Server using Terraform:

⭐ Creation of terraform. tf with hashicorp/aws version

terraform {
  required_version = ">= 1.0.0"
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 3.0"
    }
    random = {
      source  = "hashicorp/random"
      version = "3.1.0"
    }
  }
}

⭐ Creation of EC2 instance along with security group including AWS providers (main.tf)

# Configure the AWS Provider
provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

# Security Group
resource "aws_security_group" "web-server" {
  vpc_id      =  aws_vpc.vpc.id
  name        = "web-server"
  description = "Allow incoming HTTP Connections"
  ingress {
    from_port   = 80
    to_port     = 80
    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"]
  }
}

# Creation of EC2 Instance
resource "aws_instance" "web-server" {
  ami             = "ami-02e136e904f3da870"
  instance_type   = "t2.micro"
  key_name        = "terraform-challenge"
  security_groups = ["${aws_security_group.web-server.name}"]
  user_data       = <<-EOF
#!/bin/bash 
sudo su
yum update -y
yum install httpd -y
systemctl start httpd
systemctl enable httpd
echo "<html><h1> Welcome to #30DaysTerraformChallenge. Happy Learning... </h1></html>" >> /var/www/html/index.html       
EOF 
  tags = {
    Name = "web_instance"
  }
}

⭐ Creation of output. tf

output "web_instance_ip" {
  value = aws_instance.web-server.public_ip
}

⭐ Once the code has been added make sure the configuration and format are valid by the below commands

💡

terraform validate

💡

terraform fmt

⭐ Initialize the terraform using below command

💡

terraform init

⭐ Resource actions are indicated using the below command

💡

terraform plan

⭐ To deploy the resources use the below command

💡

terraform apply or terraform apply -auto-approve

terraform apply

⭐ You can log into the console and verify the EC2 instances and Security Group have been created

EC2

🤩 Here goes an output

output

⭐ You can destroy the resource created using the following command

💡

terraform destroy or terraform destroy -auto-approve

🕵🏻I also want to express that your feedback is always welcome. As I strive to provide accurate information and insights, I acknowledge that there’s always room for improvement. If you notice any mistakes or have suggestions for enhancement, I sincerely invite you to share them with me.

🤩 Thanks for being patient and following me. Keep supporting 🙏

Clap👏 if you liked the blog.

For more exercises — please follow me below ✅!

https://vjraghavanv.hashnode.dev/

#aws #terraform #cloudcomputing #IaC #DevOps #tools #operations #developers #awsugmdu #awsugncr #automatewithraghavan