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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Terraform Has a Free API — Here's How to Manage Cloud Infrastructure as Code

#aws #terraform #iac #devops

Terraform by HashiCorp lets you define cloud infrastructure using declarative configuration files. It supports AWS, GCP, Azure, and 3,000+ providers — all free and open source.

Installation 

brew install terraform
# or download from terraform.io
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Basic AWS Setup 

# main.tf
terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 5.0"
    }
  }
}

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

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"
  instance_type = "t3.micro"

  tags = {
    Name = "web-server"
  }
}

output "public_ip" {
  value = aws_instance.web.public_ip
}
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Workflow 

terraform init      # Download providers
terraform plan      # Preview changes
terraform apply     # Apply changes
terraform destroy   # Remove all resources
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Variables 

# variables.tf
variable "instance_type" {
  description = "EC2 instance type"
  type        = string
  default     = "t3.micro"
}

variable "environment" {
  type = string
  validation {
    condition     = contains(["dev", "staging", "prod"], var.environment)
    error_message = "Must be dev, staging, or prod."
  }
}

# Use variables
resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  instance_type = var.instance_type
  tags = { Environment = var.environment }
}
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Modules 

module "vpc" {
  source  = "terraform-aws-modules/vpc/aws"
  version = "~> 5.0"

  name = "my-vpc"
  cidr = "10.0.0.0/16"
  azs  = ["us-east-1a", "us-east-1b"]

  private_subnets = ["10.0.1.0/24", "10.0.2.0/24"]
  public_subnets  = ["10.0.101.0/24", "10.0.102.0/24"]

  enable_nat_gateway = true
}
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State Management 

terraform {
  backend "s3" {
    bucket = "my-terraform-state"
    key    = "prod/terraform.tfstate"
    region = "us-east-1"
    encrypt = true
  }
}
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Data Sources 

data "aws_ami" "ubuntu" {
  most_recent = true
  owners      = ["099720109477"]

  filter {
    name   = "name"
    values = ["ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-jammy-22.04-amd64-server-*"]
  }
}

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  ami = data.aws_ami.ubuntu.id
}
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