Installing Terraform

First we need to install Terraform so we can start building infrastructure. I will be installing Terraform on Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS. Commands for your operating system may be a little different.

Installation instructions for other operating systems can be found within Terraform’s installation documentation

> Add GPG key
    $ curl -fsSL https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

> Add HashiCorp repo
    $ sudo apt-add-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main"

> Update and Install
    $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install terraform

Setting up Libvirt / KVM as a Terraform provider

In Terraform v0.13 and above, the devs changed how in-house Providers work. Libvirt/KVM is considered an in-house provider, so we need to do a few extra steps to get our environment ready. Below are steps on how to build from source and install dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt to be able to use libvirt/KVM locally with Terraform.

Requirements:

• Terraform installed
• Go installed
• libvirt installed

Installation Steps:

1. Create required directories for new in-house provider structure (change version number if you are using a different version)

 $ mkdir -p ~/.local/share/terraform/plugins/registry.terraform.io/dmacvicar/libvirt/0.6.3/linux_amd64/repoDownload

2. Clone dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt repo and make

 $ cd ~/.local/share/terraform/plugins/registry.terraform.io/dmacvicar/libvirt/0.6.3/linux_amd64/repoDownload
 $ git clone https://github.com/dmacvicar/terraform-provider-libvirt.git
 $ cd terraform-provider-libvirt
 $ make
 $ cd ~/.local/share/terraform/plugins/registry.terraform.io/dmacvicar/libvirt/0.6.3/linux_amd64
 $ mv ~/.local/share/terraform/plugins/registry.terraform.io/dmacvicar/libvirt/0.6.3/linux_amd64/repoDownload/terraform-provider-libvirt/terraform-provider-libvirt .

Testing Terraform with new Libvirt provider

Now that Terraform and Libvirt provider are setup and ready to be used…let’s test it! Below is a simple main.tf file used to create and deploy a simple test VM.

Testing Steps:

1. Create and cd into directory where your Terraform configuration files will be stored
2. Initiate working directory

 $ terraform init

3. Terraform plan and apply

> Terraform Plan
    $ terraform plan

> Terraform Apply
    $ terraform apply

You should now see your newly created VM! Below is what it looks like for me.

4. Terraform destroy to remove newly created test VM

 $ terraform destroy

main.tf file:

 terraform {
     required_providers {
         libvirt = {
             source  = "dmacvicar/libvirt"
             version = "0.6.3"
         }
     }
 }
 
 provider "libvirt" {
     uri = "qemu:///system"
 }
 
 resource "libvirt_domain" "terraform_test" {
   name = "terraform_test"
 }