Terraform and Ansible: Combining the Power of Two Tools

Are you tired of manually configuring your infrastructure every time you need to deploy a new application? Do you want to automate your deployment process and save time and effort? If so, you need to know about Terraform and Ansible.

Terraform and Ansible are two powerful tools that can help you automate your infrastructure deployment process. Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Ansible is a tool for automating configuration management and application deployment.

In this article, we will explore how Terraform and Ansible can work together to provide a powerful and efficient infrastructure deployment process.

What is Terraform?

Terraform is an open-source tool developed by HashiCorp that allows you to define your infrastructure as code. With Terraform, you can create, modify, and delete infrastructure resources such as virtual machines, storage accounts, and network interfaces.

Terraform uses a declarative language to define your infrastructure. This means that you define what you want your infrastructure to look like, and Terraform takes care of the details of how to create it.

Terraform also provides a state management system that keeps track of the resources you have created. This allows you to easily modify or delete resources without having to worry about the dependencies between them.

What is Ansible?

Ansible is an open-source tool developed by Red Hat that allows you to automate configuration management and application deployment. With Ansible, you can define your infrastructure as code and use it to configure your servers and deploy your applications.

Ansible uses a declarative language called YAML to define your infrastructure. This means that you define what you want your infrastructure to look like, and Ansible takes care of the details of how to configure it.

Ansible also provides a powerful set of modules that allow you to perform a wide range of tasks, such as installing software, configuring network settings, and managing users and groups.

Why Use Terraform and Ansible Together?

Terraform and Ansible are both powerful tools that can help you automate your infrastructure deployment process. However, they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Terraform is great for creating and managing infrastructure resources such as virtual machines, storage accounts, and network interfaces. However, it does not provide a way to configure the software running on those resources.

Ansible is great for configuring software running on servers and deploying applications. However, it does not provide a way to create and manage infrastructure resources.

By using Terraform and Ansible together, you can combine the strengths of both tools to create a powerful and efficient infrastructure deployment process.

How to Use Terraform and Ansible Together

Using Terraform and Ansible together is easy. Here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Use Terraform to create and manage your infrastructure resources. This includes creating virtual machines, storage accounts, and network interfaces.

2. Use Ansible to configure the software running on your infrastructure resources. This includes installing software, configuring network settings, and managing users and groups.

3. Use Ansible to deploy your applications to your infrastructure resources. This includes copying files, configuring settings, and starting services.

By following these steps, you can create a powerful and efficient infrastructure deployment process that automates the creation, configuration, and deployment of your applications.

Example: Deploying a Web Application with Terraform and Ansible

To illustrate how Terraform and Ansible can work together, let's walk through an example of deploying a web application.

In this example, we will use Terraform to create a virtual machine and a storage account in Azure. We will then use Ansible to configure the virtual machine and deploy a web application.

Step 1: Create Infrastructure with Terraform

First, we need to create our infrastructure resources with Terraform. We will create a virtual machine and a storage account in Azure.

Here is the Terraform code to create our infrastructure:

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "example" {
  name     = "example-resource-group"
  location = "eastus"
}

resource "azurerm_storage_account" "example" {
  name                     = "examplestorage"
  resource_group_name      = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location                 = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  account_tier             = "Standard"
  account_replication_type = "LRS"
}

resource "azurerm_network_interface" "example" {
  name                = "example-nic"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name

  ip_configuration {
    name                          = "example-ip-config"
    subnet_id                     = "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>/resourceGroups/<resource-group>/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/<vnet-name>/subnets/<subnet-name>"
    private_ip_address_allocation = "Dynamic"
  }
}

resource "azurerm_virtual_machine" "example" {
  name                  = "example-vm"
  location              = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  resource_group_name   = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  network_interface_ids = [azurerm_network_interface.example.id]

  vm_size              = "Standard_DS1_v2"
  delete_os_disk_on_termination = true

  storage_os_disk {
    name              = "example-os-disk"
    caching           = "ReadWrite"
    create_option     = "FromImage"
    managed_disk_type = "Standard_LRS"
  }

  storage_image_reference {
    publisher = "Canonical"
    offer     = "UbuntuServer"
    sku       = "18.04-LTS"
    version   = "latest"
  }

  os_profile {
    computer_name  = "example-vm"
    admin_username = "exampleuser"
    admin_password = "examplepassword"
  }

  os_profile_linux_config {
    disable_password_authentication = false
  }
}

This Terraform code creates a resource group, a storage account, a network interface, and a virtual machine in Azure. The virtual machine is configured with Ubuntu Server 18.04 and an admin user with the username "exampleuser" and password "examplepassword".

Step 2: Configure Infrastructure with Ansible

Next, we need to configure our virtual machine with Ansible. We will install Apache and configure it to serve a simple web page.

Here is the Ansible code to configure our virtual machine:

- name: Install Apache
  become: true
  apt:
    name: apache2
    update_cache: yes

- name: Configure Apache
  become: true
  template:
    src: index.html.j2
    dest: /var/www/html/index.html
  notify: restart apache

- name: Start Apache
  become: true
  service:
    name: apache2
    state: started
    enabled: true

This Ansible code installs Apache, copies a template for the index.html file, and starts the Apache service. The template for the index.html file looks like this:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello World!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello World!</h1>
  </body>
</html>

Step 3: Deploy Application with Ansible

Finally, we need to deploy our web application with Ansible. We will copy the application files to the virtual machine and configure Apache to serve them.

Here is the Ansible code to deploy our web application:

- name: Copy Application Files
  become: true
  copy:
    src: app/
    dest: /var/www/html/

- name: Configure Apache for Application
  become: true
  template:
    src: app.conf.j2
    dest: /etc/apache2/sites-available/app.conf
  notify: restart apache

- name: Enable Application Site
  become: true
  command: a2ensite app.conf
  notify: restart apache

This Ansible code copies the application files to the virtual machine, configures Apache to serve them, and enables the Apache site for the application. The template for the app.conf file looks like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/app

  <Directory /var/www/html/app>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Conclusion

Terraform and Ansible are two powerful tools that can help you automate your infrastructure deployment process. By using them together, you can create a powerful and efficient infrastructure deployment process that automates the creation, configuration, and deployment of your applications.

In this article, we explored how Terraform and Ansible can work together to provide a powerful and efficient infrastructure deployment process. We walked through an example of deploying a web application with Terraform and Ansible, showing how to create infrastructure resources with Terraform, configure the virtual machine with Ansible, and deploy the application with Ansible.

If you want to learn more about Terraform and Ansible, check out the documentation and tutorials on their respective websites. And if you want to learn more about declarative deployment using cloud, visit our website, terraform.video.

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