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8h Terraform Graph

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24 views4 pages

8h Terraform Graph

Uploaded by

kumar j
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lab: Terraform Graph

Terraform’s interpolation syntax is very human-friendly, but under the hood it builds a very power-
ful resource graph. When resources are created they expose a number of relevant properties and
Terraform’s resource graph allows it to determine dependency management and order of execution
for resource buildouts. Terraform has the ability to support the parallel management of resources
because of it’s resource graph allowing it to optimize the speed of deployments.

The resource graph is an internal representation of all resources and their dependencies. A human-
readable graph can be generated using the terraform graph command.

• Task 1: Terraform’s Resource Graph and Dependencies


• Task 2: Generate a graph against Terraform configuration using terraform graph

Task 1: Terraform’s Resource Graph and Dependencies

When resources are created they expose a number of relevant properties. Let’s look at portion of our
main.tf that builds out our AWS VPC, private subnets, internet gateways and private keys. In this
case, our private subnets and internet gateway are referencing our VPC ID and are therefore dependent
on the VPC. Our private key however has no dependencies on any resources.

resource "aws_vpc" "vpc" {


cidr_block = var.vpc_cidr

tags = {
Name = var.vpc_name
Environment = "demo_environment"
Terraform = "true"
}

enable_dns_hostnames = true
}

resource "aws_subnet" "private_subnets" {


for_each = var.private_subnets
vpc_id = aws_vpc.vpc.id
cidr_block = cidrsubnet(var.vpc_cidr, 8, each.value)
availability_zone = tolist(data.aws_availability_zones.available.names)[each.value]

tags = {
Name = each.key
Terraform = "true"
}

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}

resource "aws_internet_gateway" "internet_gateway" {


vpc_id = aws_vpc.vpc.id
tags = {
Name = "demo_igw"
}
}

resource "tls_private_key" "generated" {


algorithm = "RSA"
}

Because we have defined our infrastructure in code, we can build a data structure around it and then
work with it. Some of these nodes depend on data from other nodes which need to be spun up first.
Others might be disconnected or isolated. Our graph might look something like this, with the arrows
showing the the dependencies and order of operations.

Figure 1: Terraform Graph: Built-in dependency management

Terraform walks the graph several times starting at the root node and using the providers: to collect
user input, to validate the config, to generate a plan, and to apply a plan. Terraform can determine
which nodes need to be created sequentially and which can be created in parallel. In this case our
private key can be built in parallel with our VPC, while our subnets and internet gateways are dependent
on the AWS VPC being built first.

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Task 2: Generate a graph against Terraform configuration using terraform graph

The terraform graph command is used to generate a visual representation of either a configuration
or execution plan. The output is in the DOT format, which can be used by GraphViz to generate charts.
This graph is useful for visualizing infrastructure and dependencies. Let’s build out our infrastructure
and use terraform graph to visualize the output.

terraform init
terraform apply
terraform graph

digraph {
compound = "true"
newrank = "true"
subgraph "root" {
# ...
}
}

Paste that output into http://www.webgraphviz.com to get a visual representation of dependencies


that Terraform creates for your configuration.

Figure 2: Visualize Terraform Graph

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We can find our resources on the graph and follow the dependencies, which is what Terraform does
everytime we exercise it’s workflow.

Figure 3: Visualize Terraform Graph Dependencies

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