Master Terraform & Ansible in 10 Minutes: Automate AWS Deployment Like a Pro!

🚀 Deploy an Application Using Terraform and Ansible: A Beginner’s Guide

Combining Terraform and Ansible helps automate infrastructure deployment and configuration management efficiently. In this guide, we’ll:
✅ Use Terraform to provision an AWS EC2 instance
✅ Use Ansible to configure the server and deploy an application

Step 1: Install Terraform and Ansible

Install Terraform

For Linux/macOS:

wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/1.6.0/terraform_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip
unzip terraform_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip
sudo mv terraform /usr/local/bin/
terraform --version

For Windows:

Download Terraform from Terraform Official Website
Extract and add it to your system’s PATH
Run terraform --version to verify

Install Ansible

For Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ansible -y

For CentOS/RHEL:

sudo yum install epel-release -y
sudo yum install ansible -y

For macOS:

brew install ansible

Step 2: Configure AWS Credentials

Ensure you have AWS CLI installed and configured:

aws configure

Enter your AWS Access Key, Secret Key, Region, and Output format.

Step 3: Write a Terraform Script to Create an EC2 Instance

Create a new directory for your project:

mkdir terraform-ansible-demo && cd terraform-ansible-demo

Create a main.tf file:

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"  # Amazon Linux AMI (update as per your region)
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
  key_name      = "my-key"  # Ensure this key exists in AWS
  security_groups = ["default"]

  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "echo ${self.public_ip} > inventory.ini"
  }

  tags = {
    Name = "Terraform-Ansible-Instance"
  }
}

Step 4: Initialize and Apply Terraform

Run the following commands:

terraform init
terraform apply -auto-approve

Once completed, Terraform will create an inventory.ini file with the instance’s public IP.

Step 5: Create an Ansible Inventory File

Modify inventory.ini to look like this:

[web]
<EC2-PUBLIC-IP> ansible_user=ec2-user ansible_ssh_private_key_file=my-key.pem

Replace <EC2-PUBLIC-IP> with the instance’s actual IP.

Step 6: Write an Ansible Playbook to Install and Deploy an Application

Create a file called deploy.yml:

---
- name: Deploy Application
  hosts: web
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Install Apache
      yum:
        name: httpd
        state: present

    - name: Start Apache Service
      service:
        name: httpd
        state: started
        enabled: yes

    - name: Create a Sample Web Page
      copy:
        dest: /var/www/html/index.html
        content: "<h1>Welcome to Ansible Automated Deployment</h1>"

    - name: Restart Apache
      service:
        name: httpd
        state: restarted

Step 7: Run the Ansible Playbook

Execute the playbook using:

ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini deploy.yml

Step 8: Verify the Deployment

Open a browser and visit:

http://<EC2-PUBLIC-IP>

You should see “Welcome to Ansible Automated Deployment”.

Step 9: Cleanup

When done, destroy the infrastructure:

terraform destroy -auto-approve

🎯 Summary of What We Did:

✅ Used Terraform to create an AWS EC2 instance
✅ Used Ansible to install and configure Apache
✅ Successfully deployed a sample web page

💡 Next Steps:

Automate database setup
Deploy a full-stack application
Integrate CI/CD pipelines

Happy Automating! 🚀

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