Setup Terraform for Azure

#azure #terraform #devops #cloud

Before we start, let me talk briefly about each tools and what is it used for:

Terraform is Infrastructure as Code(IaC) tool from HashiCorp that automates the provisioning, updating, and destruction of infrastructure resources.
Azure is a cloud computing platform. Azure offers a wide range of cloud services, including compute, storage, networking, analytics, and AI.

Let start

Install Terraform

Here we use Ubuntu, Install Terraform - Ubuntu

sudo wget -O - https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(grep -oP '(?<=UBUNTU_CODENAME=).*' /etc/os-release || lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install terraform

Then run terraform -v

Terraform v1.11.4
on linux_amd64

Your version of Terraform is out of date! The latest version
is 1.12.1. You can update by downloading from https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/install

Install Azure CLI

There are other ways to connect terraform with azure beside azure cli

We can just follow the official instruction, Install Azure CLI- Ubuntu

curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash

Then run az version

{
  "azure-cli": "2.74.0",
  "azure-cli-core": "2.74.0",
  "azure-cli-telemetry": "1.1.0",
  "extensions": {}
}

Config Azure Credentials

We can connect to Azure by type az login and follow the instructions.

type az account show to show the details of a subscription

Terraform Configuration

Create main.tf and config azure provider as in the document Azure Provider

# main.tf
# We strongly recommend using the required_providers block to set the
# Azure Provider source and version being used
terraform {
  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      source  = "hashicorp/azurerm"
      version = "=3.0.0"
    }
  }
}

# Configure the Microsoft Azure Provider
provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

# Create a resource group
resource "azurerm_resource_group" "example" {
  name     = "example-resources"
  location = "West Europe"
}

type terraform init to initializing the backend

then, type terraform validate to validate the code

next, we run terraform plan, this will compare the actual state and desire state and show the plan what is the config will do.

Finally, terraform apply to apply to Azure cloud

Terraform also allows you to modify the config code.

# Let change location of resource group
resource "azurerm_resource_group" "example" {
  name     = "example-resources"
  location = "Southeast Asia"
}