This project will cover the creation of a basic cloud server on an IaaS platform called DigitalOcean. This will be accomplished using an IaC technology called Terraform. This project assumes you already have Terraform installed on your machine. If not, check out Hashicorp's offical installation instructions here. Some familiarity with Terraform would help with understanding these instructions, though it is not strictly necessary. I'll try to explain everything as we go, and I'll include a section at the end to better clarify the content of the project files.
The button below is a referal link to DigitalOcean. If you set up an account using it, you'll get $200 in credit over 60 days. And after that, I'll get $25 in credit if you spend $25 or more. Just a small way we can support one another!
DigitalOcean is a cloud hosting provider that offers cloud computing services and Infrastructre as a Service (IaaS). I find it to be a developer-friendly platform that provides services such as compute, storage, data, and network infrastructure. Following along with this project assumes you have an account set up with DigitalOcean. Don't worry, you'll get free credits to use during this exploratory phase. In fact, one of the reasons I advocate so heavily for IaC is because it allows us to stand up a machine, webserver, VPC, or whatever we need instantly, consistently, and lasting only for as long as we need it. We can tailor the exact specification of our needs and manifest them through simple commands, backed by the blueprint of the infrastructure, written in code. So for this project, we will only create a very small virtual machine (VM), which will only be in existence for moments. We will create this instance, explore it, then tear it down. As we become more adept at this, we can use other technologies to provision these VMs with specific capabilities, such as serving as a webserver, vpn, gateway, storage bucket, and more. But before we can fly, we must first be able to run...
To follow along, clone this project and move into the terraform directory with your terminal.
Note that the terraform.tfvars file does not exist in the repository. This file is protected from version control with .gitignore. This file needs to be created in the project's root directory, and the ssh key and personal access token detailed below should be placed inside it. A sample template for this file is included in the repo, as terraform.tfvars.template. Simply substiute your own values for the variables (including the brackets), then remove the .template extension from the file name. You can achieve this with something like:
$ mv terraform.tfvars.template terraform.tfvarsIn order for this project to work, you'll need to generate an SSH key pair and drop the public key in DigitalOcean. After creating a new key pair with ssh-keygen or something similar, go to the Settings -> Security tab and add the new key. Once you add the key, you'll need to remember the name you gave it and copy the fingerprint provided by DigitalOcean. You'll need to place the copied values into the terraform.tfvars file like so:
ssh_key_fingerprint = "[copied_fingerprint]"
ssh_key_name = "[ssh_key_name_from_do]"Similarly, a Personal Access Token (PAT) needs to be created on DigitalOcean for connecting to the API. This can be found on the API -> Tokens tab. Make sure the scope is set to Read and Write, and be sure to copy the token once it is created, because you'll never get to see it again. Once copied, place the token in the terraform.tfvars file like so:
do_token = "[personal_access_token]"Once the project is cloned to your local machine and the steps above have been followed, navigate a terminal to the terraform directory and initialize the terraform project:
$ terraform initIf terraform has been successfully intialized, check the plan by running:
$ terraform planIf this looks okay, you can spin up the cloud machines any time by applying the plan:
$ terraform applyYou'll have to type yes in order to confirm the process. It'll take a little time to create the cloud machine and build up the firewall. But once it's done, the newly-created machine's IP address should be listed in the terminal that ran the terraform as public_ip_server. If all goes as expected, your VM is ready for you to ssh into and explore.
This process creates a VM on Digital Ocean with the following properties:
- Image: Debian 11 x64
- Size: 1 Intel vCPU, 2 GB Memory
- Storage: 50 GB disk
- Region: NYC1
- Firewall Allows:
- Inbound: HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, ICMP
- Outbound: HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, ICMP
- Cost: $0.018/hour
Now to verify that your machine is up and running, you can check it in your DigitalOcean dashboard under your project's resources. You can also attempt to SSH into your VM remotely. Just take the public_ip_server IPv4 address returned by Terraform and run the command:
$ ssh root@public_ip_serverMake sure to type yes to add the IP address to the known hosts, which will then allow you to proceed to the VM:
Linux iac-test-server 5.10.0-23-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.179-1 (2023-05-12) x86_64
The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
root@iac-test-server:~#Congratulations! You now have an active VM that you can explore, use, scale, or tear down whenever you're done. Even better, you now have a proven, reliable method of spinning up a VM whenever you need it simply by running a couple of commands. Eventually we'll look at custom provisioning these VMs for specific use cases, as well as learning more about building a network ifrastructure all from code.
To destroy and tear down the infrastructure. Simply use the following command in the terraform directory:
$ terraform destroyAny time you want to redeploy the VM, simply run the terraform plan and terraform apply commands again.
Let's break down the files in this project for a better holistic view. In addition, each file has been seeded with comments to help with this understanding.
The provider.tf file in Terraform serves as a configuration file specifying the details of the cloud or infrastructure provider you're using. It defines essential settings such as authentication credentials, region, and any other provider-specific configurations required for Terraform to interact with and manage resources on that platform. This file ensures seamless communication between your Terraform scripts and the chosen provider, facilitating the deployment and management of your infrastructure.
The resources.tf file in Terraform is where you declare and define the infrastructure resources that you want to create or manage. It acts as a blueprint for your desired state, specifying the details of each resource, such as type, configuration, and dependencies. This file is crucial for Terraform to understand what components to provision and how to configure them, enabling you to effectively orchestrate and maintain your infrastructure in a consistent and reproducible manner.
In Terraform, the variables.tf file plays a pivotal role in parameterizing your infrastructure configuration. This file allows you to define variables, providing a way to make your Terraform scripts more dynamic and reusable. By parameterizing values such as instance counts, resource names, or configuration details, the variables.tf file enhances flexibility, making it easier to adapt and deploy infrastructure across different environments or scenarios. It acts as a central hub for managing input parameters, promoting consistency and simplifying the customization of your Terraform deployments.
The terraform.tfvars file in Terraform serves as a means to assign values to the variables declared in the variables.tf file. It acts as a configuration file where you can set specific values for variables, allowing you to customize the behavior of your Terraform scripts without modifying the main infrastructure code. This separation of variables and their values enables easy adjustment of parameters like API keys, instance sizes, or other settings based on the specific requirements of your deployment, promoting flexibility and maintainability in your Terraform configurations.
Checkout Intro to Ansible for instructions on how to configure a droplet with Ansible, after it's been created with Terraform.