Terraform Master Course | HashiCorp Certified Terraform 2021

Explore how cloud, DevOps, and infrastructure as code enable rapid, automated provisioning and software-defined infrastructure using Terraform to manage resources with versioned code.

Explore infrastructure as code, a software-defined approach to provisioning resources in cloud and private environments, using Terraform and configuration management tools for repeatable, self-service deployments.

Terraform is an open-source infrastructure provisioning tool using a human-readable HashiCorp Configuration Language or JSON to define end states, enabling platform-agnostic, one-workflow provisioning across multi-cloud and on premise.

Discover Terraform's declarative, immutable, and idempotent approach to infrastructure provisioning. See how it enables repeatable configurations, drift prevention, and safe versioning to maintain the desired end state.

Navigate the Terraform documentation to master the Terraform CLI and configuration language, using provider guides and AWS EC2 samples to identify required versus optional attributes.

Install Terraform on Linux and macOS by downloading the correct binary from the Terraform site, unzip, make it executable, move to /usr/local/bin, and verify with terraform version.

Install Terraform on Windows by downloading the Windows binary from terraform.io or using Chocolatey, following HashiCorp Learn tutorials.

Install and configure JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition with the Terraform plugin to enable autocomplete, syntax highlighting, brace matching, and error detection for Terraform configurations.

Configure AWS and GCP credentials for Terraform using the AWS CLI or environment variables, and Google service accounts with a JSON key; avoid embedding credentials in Terraform config.

Master the Terraform configuration syntax by reading and writing code with blocks, curly braces, labels, resources, data sources, variables, providers, and nested blocks, including arguments and expressions.

Explore the Terraform core, including the binary downloaded from the Terraform site. Learn the init, plan, apply, and destroy workflow plus the state-driven diff that maintains the desired end state.

Discover how Terraform providers, as plugins, connect the Terraform core to infrastructure, enabling the crud lifecycle, execution plans, and state management across providers via provider blocks and credentials.

Learn to use aliases to configure multiple regions under a single provider in Terraform, directing resources to different AWS regions via the provider meta-argument.

Understand how terraform state, stored in a root directory state file, captures real-world infrastructure to enable idempotent plans and drift detection, with plan, apply, refresh, and state management considerations.

Explore the Terraform resource configuration block, its syntax, and the arguments that define AWS or Google Cloud resources, including how provider plugins and meta-arguments shape dependencies.

Discover Terraform provisioners as a last-resort post-creation configuration mechanism within infrastructure provisioning, noting Terraform is not a configuration management tool, with local exec provisioner, remote exec provisioner, and file provisioners.

Master how to use Terraform's local exec provisioner to run commands after a resource is created, write attributes to a file for configuration management, understand create and destroy provisioner flavors.

Explore the remote exec provisioner in Terraform, using a null resource to run remote scripts post-creation, with triggers, SSH connections, and optional file provisioner for pushing files.

Learn how terraform handles remote-exec provisioner failures, whether attached directly to an EC2 resource or via a null resource, including tainting behavior and the need to reapply.

Explore local workspaces in Terraform to maintain separate state files for the same configuration. Leverage workspace interpolation and the create/select/list/delete commands to manage dev and production environments.

Learn how to import existing real-world infrastructure into Terraform, map resources to a Terraform configuration, and manage multi-cloud resources (AWS and GCP) using Terraform import and the state file.

Learn how to format Terraform configurations for readability and collaboration by applying indentation, two-space style, and proper separation of meta arguments, arguments, and nested blocks with the Terraform fmt command.

Tainting marks a Terraform managed resource for deletion and recreation on the next apply when something goes wrong between the apply and the infrastructure provider.

Explore the Terraform console as an interactive prompt to test variables, reference resource attributes, and apply built-in functions within your configuration.

Master the Terraform workflow to create and manage resources with code, including writing configuration, initializing modules, planning, and applying changes, with ci/cd pipeline integration.

Initialize your terraform working directory to provision a multi-cloud setup by downloading provider plugins with terraform init. Learn how per-provider plugins and the upgrade option fetch the latest versions.

Validate your Terraform code early to catch syntax and missing argument errors using terraform validate. It checks only the core configuration and requires init; it does not verify provider API.

Generate a terraform execution plan to match the desired end state, review it before apply, and save it with -out for team review, and recognize plus, minus, and tilde changes.

Apply the execution plan with terraform apply to manage drift and keep resources aligned, using flags like auto-approve, refresh, and target, and understanding tainting causes destroy and recreate.

Use Terraform destroy to remove resources managed by Terraform and avoid manual deletions. Prepare and review a destroy plan, optionally target resources, and enable auto-approve in CI/CD with state refresh.

Learn to deploy a real-world, multi-cloud Terraform setup with autoscaled web apps behind a load balancer on AWS and GCP, using VPC networks and cross-resource attribute references.

Configure a non-default AWS VPC across multiple availability zones, set up an autoscaled EC2 fleet with a network load balancer, and deploy a web app using Terraform.

Learn to build an autoscaled multi-AZ load-balanced application on Google Cloud with Terraform, featuring a managed instance group, instance templates, startup scripts, firewalls, and a custom VPC and load balancer.

Clarifies the difference between Terraform arguments and attributes, explains where to find them in provider docs, and shows how to use resource attributes from other resources and outputs in configurations.

Explore how Terraform expressions define and evaluate values using literals, variables, functions, and collection types like lists, maps, and sets to optimize infrastructure configurations.

Define Terraform variables to centralize configuration and reuse code. Use variable blocks, default values, types, and tfvars or environment variables to set values, with var.name references throughout.

Learn how Terraform output values in the root module expose provisioned resource data, read from the state, and fetch useful attributes after apply.

Learn to refer to resource attributes as expressions in Terraform, enabling dependency management by using resource ids, ip addresses, and other data created during provisioning.

Explore how Terraform data sources fetch real-time information from providers, letting you read ami ids, vpc ids, subnets, and other data without manual lookup, then reuse it via outputs.

Discover how Terraform built-in functions power expressions, from selecting list items with element to calculating subnets with CIDR subnet, and using data sources for AMI IDs and instance types.

Learn to scale Terraform configurations using meta arguments count and for_each to create multiple resources, address them with indexes or descriptive keys, and avoid duplication.

Apply dynamic blocks to repeated nested blocks in Terraform with for_each and maps. Compare literal nested blocks against dynamic blocks, and learn which top-level blocks support nesting.

Learn to use terraform for and splat expressions to iterate over lists and maps, transform elements (lowercase, base64 decode), and collect outputs with split expressions across resources.

Learn how to apply Terraform conditional expressions to pick values based on booleans, using ternary operators, with practical examples for Google Cloud Platform machine types, images, and startup scripts.

Explore Terraform dependencies, distinguishing implicit dependencies driven by the infrastructure provider from explicit ones declared with depends_on, and how dependency order shapes creation and destruction.

Visualize your Terraform configuration dependencies by generating a dot file with Terraform graph and rendering a Graphviz picture to show provider, resources, and their creation order.

Master troubleshooting Terraform by enabling trace-level logging with the tf_log variable and saving logs via tf_log_path to diagnose errors.

Understand how Terraform crashes under heavy deployments, locate the crash.log in the root directory, capture the Terraform version, and prepare crash reports for Terraform support.

Explore Terraform Vault for credential security, learning how Vault injects API keys and credentials as temporary tokens. Note that secrets are not encrypted in state file or in a plan.

Learn how Terraform modules let you create reusable infrastructure by organizing code into root and child modules, enabling shared blueprints across dev and production environments.

Explore how to use child modules in Terraform, define input variables and outputs, and manage defaults and required arguments in root and child module blocks.

Master how to call child Terraform modules with the source argument, pass input variables as module arguments, and reference child module outputs to compose interconnected resources.

Discover how to use the Terraform public registry to browse and download modules, understand versioning, and pin specific module versions for consistent deployments across teams.

Master Terraform module versioning with GitHub, pin versions, and share modules via a central repository or the public registry.

Discover how Terraform backends manage the state file, comparing local, remote, and standard backends. Learn why teams use remote state for collaboration and CI/CD workflows.

Explain how state locking protects the Terraform state file during plan and apply, preventing concurrent writes across teams and enabling safe remote backends like Google Cloud Storage and S3.

Configure a standard terraform backend with S3 remote state and DynamoDB locking, enabling server-side encryption and correct bucket key and region.

Migrate Terraform state from S3 to Google Cloud Storage using the standard backend with state locking by default. Initialize the backend and apply changes without recreating infrastructure.

Refresh the Terraform state to keep the state file up to date with real-world infrastructure and enable accurate plan and apply execution.

Master Terraform state management by listing managed resources and inspecting a single resource's attributes, while learning why editing the state file is discouraged and how refresh keeps infrastructure in sync.

Master Terraform state management using state mv and state rm to rename or move resources across addresses and modules without affecting the provider, and use state list to audit.

Learn to manage terraform state with state pool and state push, enabling remote backups and safe merges using lineage and serial numbers across local and remote backends.

Explore Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise, a SaaS platform that enables remote operations, shared workspaces, and team collaboration with secure state files and automated plans.

Learn to configure Terraform Cloud as a remote backend with VCS, linking GitHub repositories to organizations and workspaces to provision AWS and GCP infrastructure using run triggers.

Learn to use Terraform Cloud as a remote backend via the CLI, triggering init, plan, apply, and destroy while configuring organization and workspace with an API token.

migrate your local terraform backend to Terraform Cloud by configuring a remote back end, initializing, migrating the state, and managing workspaces and credentials for runs.

Learn how Sentinel uses policy as code to enforce secure configuration and guardrails, with policies in policy sets stored in version control and checked at plan.

Explore the Terraform Cloud cost estimation feature, which provides an average monthly cost per run and per workspace, with sentinel policies to enforce cost limits for AWS, Azure and GCP.