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Terraform
GCP

Install Terraform

  • 9min
  • |
  • Terraform
  • Video
  • Interactive

To use Terraform you will need to install it. HashiCorp distributes Terraform as a binary package. You can also install Terraform using popular package managers.

Install Terraform

Retrieve the terraform binary by downloading a pre-compiled binary or compiling it from source.

To install Terraform, find the appropriate package for your system and download it as a zip archive.

After downloading Terraform, unzip the package. Terraform runs as a single binary named terraform. Any other files in the package can be safely removed and Terraform will still function.

Finally, make sure that the terraform binary is available on your PATH. This process will differ depending on your operating system.

Print a colon-separated list of locations in your PATH.

$ echo $PATH

Move the Terraform binary to one of the listed locations. This command assumes that the binary is currently in your downloads folder and that your PATH includes /usr/local/bin, but you can customize it if your locations are different.

$ mv ~/Downloads/terraform /usr/local/bin/

For more detail about adding binaries to your path, see this Stack Overflow article.

Verify the installation

Verify that the installation worked by opening a new terminal session and listing Terraform's available subcommands.

$ terraform -helpUsage: terraform [-version] [-help] <command> [args] The available commands for execution are listed below.The most common, useful commands are shown first, followed byless common or more advanced commands. If you're just gettingstarted with Terraform, stick with the common commands. For theother commands, please read the help and docs before usage.##...

Add any subcommand to terraform -help to learn more about what it does and available options.

$ terraform -help plan

Troubleshoot

If you get an error that terraform could not be found, your PATH environment variable was not set up properly. Please go back and ensure that your PATH variable contains the directory where Terraform was installed.

Enable tab completion

If you use either Bash or Zsh, you can enable tab completion for Terraform commands. To enable autocomplete, first ensure that a config file exists for your chosen shell.

$ touch ~/.bashrc

Then install the autocomplete package.

$ terraform -install-autocomplete

Once the autocomplete support is installed, you will need to restart your shell.

Quick start tutorial

Now that you've installed Terraform, you can provision an NGINX server in less than a minute using Docker on Mac, Windows, or Linux. You can also follow the rest of this tutorial in your web browser.

Click on the tab(s) below relevant to your operating system.

Download Docker Desktop for Mac.

After you install Terraform and Docker on your local machine, start Docker Desktop.

$ open -a Docker

Create a directory named learn-terraform-docker-container.

$ mkdir learn-terraform-docker-container

This working directory houses the configuration files that you write to describe the infrastructure you want Terraform to create and manage. When you initialize and apply the configuration here, Terraform uses this directory to store required plugins, modules (pre-written configurations), and information about the real infrastructure it created.

Navigate into the working directory.

$ cd learn-terraform-docker-container

In the working directory, create a file called main.tf and paste the following Terraform configuration into it.

terraform {  required_providers {    docker = {      source  = "kreuzwerker/docker"      version = "~> 3.0.1"    }  }} provider "docker" {} resource "docker_image" "nginx" {  name         = "nginx"  keep_locally = false} resource "docker_container" "nginx" {  image = docker_image.nginx.image_id  name  = "tutorial"   ports {    internal = 80    external = 8000  }}

Initialize the project, which downloads a plugin called a provider that lets Terraform interact with Docker.

$ terraform init

Provision the NGINX server container with apply. When Terraform asks you to confirm type yes and press ENTER.

$ terraform apply

Verify the existence of the NGINX container by visiting localhost:8000 in your web browser or running docker ps to see the container.

NGINX running in Docker via Terraform

$ docker psCONTAINER ID        IMAGE                     COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES425d5ee58619        e791337790a6              "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   20 seconds ago      Up 19 seconds       0.0.0.0:8000->80/tcp     tutorial

To stop the container, run terraform destroy.

$ terraform destroy

You've now provisioned and destroyed an NGINX webserver with Terraform.

Next Steps

Next, you will create real infrastructure in the cloud of your choice.

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Build

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