Terraform
Terraform is a "infrastructure as code" deployment tool. In a nutshell, Terraform allows you to define virtual machine configurations in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) and then have Terraform do all the work of setting up these VMs for you automatically. The benefit of this approach is that your configs are declarative and any changes can be version controlled, are repeatable (idempotent too), and predictable.
Quick usage guide
Installation
Refer to the documentation at: https://www.terraform.io/downloads
Terraform workflow
When working with Terraform, there are 4 actions that you will be using.
First, you need to initialize your providers -- the plugins that you will need to interact with your underlying infrastructure. This is accomplished by creating a main.tf file defining your providers and then running terraform init.
Next, define your resources in the same main.tf file. Your infrastructure's networking, virtual machines, etc. will be defined in this file. Once you're ready, run terraform plan to view what the changes Terrafom will perform. If everything looks good, run terraform apply to create your resources.
Finally, you can tear down everything using terraform destroy.
In summary:
| Description | Command |
|---|---|
| Initialize and setup any providers defined in your configuration.
Review Terraform's list of available providers at: https://runebook.dev/en/docs/terraform/-index-#Providers |
terraform init
|
| Show any changes Terraform will do | terraform plan
|
| Apply the changes (create/modify/destroy) to VMs as required. | terraform apply
|
| Tear down everything | terraform destroy
|
Provider-specific notes
Proxmox
There are a number of Proxmox providers for Terraform. The most popular one is Telmate/proxmox which will be the one we'll be using here. For more information on this provider and to see all the available input parameters, see:https://registry.terraform.io/providers/Telmate/proxmox/latest/docs/resources/vm_qemu.
Create a main.tf file with the following:
# Use Telmate proxmox provider
terraform {
required_providers {
proxmox = {
source = "telmate/proxmox"
version = "2.7.4"
}
}
}
# Configure the proxmox provider
provider "proxmox" {
pm_api_url = "https://proxox-server:8006/api2/json"
pm_api_token_id = "terraform@pam!terraform_token_id"
pm_api_token_secret = "e458e7bc-d8e6-4028-885b-d0896f4becfa"
pm_tls_insecure = true
}
Setup an account with an API key on Proxmox. This account should have permissions to '/' as well as to any storage volumes it needs to create VMs on '/storage/data'. (TBD)
Run terraform init to set up the provider.
Deploy a VM
After setting up the Proxmox provider, add the following to your main.tf file.
# Define our first VM
resource "proxmox_vm_qemu" "test-vm" {
count = 1 # 0 will destroy the VM
name = "test-vm-${count.index + 1}" # count.index starts at 0. We want the VM to be named test-vm-1
target_node = var.proxmox_host # target proxmox host
clone = var.template_name # VM template to clone from
os_type = "cloud-init"
agent = 1
cores = 2
sockets = 1
cpu = "host"
memory = 2048
scsihw = "virtio-scsi-pci"
bootdisk = "sata0"
disk {
slot = 0
size = "10G"
type = "sata"
storage = "data"
iothread = 1
}
network {
model = "virtio"
bridge = "vmbr0"
}
lifecycle {
ignore_changes = [
network,
]
}
ipconfig0 = "ip=10.1.1.10${count.index + 1}/22,gw=10.1.1.1"
# sshkeys set using variables. the variable contains the text of the key.
sshkeys = <<EOF
${var.ssh_key}
EOF
}
vars.tf:
variable "ssh_key" {
default = "ssh-rsa ... "
}
# This should be the exact same name as your proxmox node name
variable "proxmox_host" {
default = "proxmox-server"
}
variable "template_name" {
default = "rocky85-template"
}
- Run
terraform planto plan the tasks - Run
terraform applyto create the VMs.
CloudStack
Create a main.tf file with the following:
terraform {
required_providers {
cloudstack = {
source = "cloudstack/cloudstack"
version = "0.4.0"
}
}
}
provider "cloudstack" {
api_url = "${var.cloudstack_api_url}"
api_key = "${var.cloudstack_api_key}"
secret_key = "${var.cloudstack_secret_key}"
}
Create a vars.tf with the following:
variable "cloudstack_api_url" {
default = "http://cloudstack-management:8080"
}
variable "cloudstack_api_key" {
default = "
}
variable "cloudstack_api_secret_key" {
default = ""
}
If you don't already have a API key and secret key, log in to the CloudStack console and navigate to your profile. Click on 'Generate Keys' and copy down the keys listed under your profile. Populate the values into vars.tf.
Run terraform init to set up the provider.
Create your first network and VM
You can do something like this:
resource "cloudstack_vpc" "default" {
name = "rcs-vpc"
display_text = "rcs-vpc"
cidr = "100.64.0.0/20"
vpc_offering = "Default VPC offering"
zone = "zone1"
}
resource "cloudstack_network" "leosnet" {
name = "leosnet"
display_text = "leosnet"
cidr = "100.64.1.0/24"
network_offering = "DefaultIsolatedNetworkOfferingForVpcNetworks"
# aclid = "${cloudstack_network_acl.default.id}"
vpc_id = "${cloudstack_vpc.default.id}"
zone = "zone1"
}
resource "cloudstack_instance" "leo1" {
name = "leo1"
zone = "zone1"
service_offering = "rcs.c5"
template = "Rocky Linux 8"
network_id = "${cloudstack_network.leosnet.id}"
}
- Run
terraform planto plan the tasks - Run
terraform applyto create the VMs.
Troubleshooting
Issues with the apply step
I kept on getting "400 Parameter verification failed":
╷
│ Error: 400 Parameter verification failed.
│
│ with proxmox_vm_qemu.test-vm[0],
│ on main.tf line 20, in resource "proxmox_vm_qemu" "test-vm":
│ 20: resource "proxmox_vm_qemu" "test-vm" {
│
╵
The issues I encountered which triggered this error was:
- Incorrect host name for the Proxmox node
- Invalid values for the disk type (I tried changing
type = "scsi"totype = "sata") while leavingiothread = 1defined.
To help diagnose issues, review the provider's documentation and ensure the values you're using are appropriate. You may also want to enable additional logging by running with the TF_LOG=TRACE environment variable:
$ TF_LOG=TRACE terraform apply