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Terraform Azure VM Deployment Guide

This guide provides a beginner-friendly, step-by-step approach to learning Terraform and deploying an Azure Virtual Machine (VM).

Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool developed by HashiCorp that allows you to define, provision, and manage cloud infrastructure using configuration files.

  • 🚀 Automates cloud resource provisioning
  • 🎯 Supports multiple cloud providers (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, etc.)
  • 📂 Uses a declarative language (HCL) to define infrastructure
  • 🔄 Manages the entire infrastructure lifecycle

Manually setting up infrastructure using cloud portals is error-prone and time-consuming. Terraform helps by:

  • 🚀 Automating deployments
  • 🎯 Ensuring consistency
  • 📂 Version-controlling infrastructure
  • ⏳ Scaling resources quickly

Terraform follows a structured declarative approach:

  • Provider – Defines the cloud provider (Azure, AWS).
  • Resources – Declares what infrastructure will be created (VMs, storage, networks).
  • Variables – Stores reusable values.
  • Outputs – Displays important values after deployment.

Before deploying a VM, install Terraform on your machine.

Install Terraform on Windows:

  • Download Terraform from the official website: Terraform Downloads
  • Extract the .zip file.
  • Add Terraform to the system PATH.
  • Verify installation by running: terraform -version

Create a Terraform configuration file (main.tf) to deploy an Azure Virtual Machine (VM).

                
provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "rg" {
  name     = "MyTerraformResourceGroup"
  location = "East US"
}

resource "azurerm_virtual_network" "vnet" {
  name                = "MyVNet"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  address_space       = ["10.0.0.0/16"]
}

resource "azurerm_subnet" "subnet" {
  name                 = "MySubnet"
  resource_group_name  = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  virtual_network_name = azurerm_virtual_network.vnet.name
  address_prefixes     = ["10.0.1.0/24"]
}

resource "azurerm_public_ip" "public_ip" {
  name                = "MyPublicIP"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  allocation_method   = "Static"
}

resource "azurerm_network_interface" "nic" {
  name                = "MyNIC"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name

  ip_configuration {
    name                          = "internal"
    subnet_id                     = azurerm_subnet.subnet.id
    private_ip_address_allocation = "Dynamic"
    public_ip_address_id          = azurerm_public_ip.public_ip.id
  }
}

resource "azurerm_windows_virtual_machine" "vm" {
  name                = "MyWindowsVM"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.rg.location
  size                = "Standard_B2s"
  admin_username      = "adminuser"
  admin_password      = "SecureP@ssw0rd123!"

  network_interface_ids = [azurerm_network_interface.nic.id]

  os_disk {
    caching              = "ReadWrite"
    storage_account_type = "Standard_LRS"
  }

  source_image_reference {
    publisher = "MicrosoftWindowsServer"
    offer     = "WindowsServer"
    sku       = "2022-Datacenter"
    version   = "latest"
  }

  computer_name = "MyWindowsVM"
}

output "vm_public_ip" {
  value = azurerm_public_ip.public_ip.ip_address
}

Execute the following commands to deploy resources:

  • az login - Authenticate with Azure
  • terraform init - Initialize Terraform
  • terraform plan - Preview changes
  • terraform apply -auto-approve - Deploy the configuration

To access the VM, follow these steps:

  • Find the Public IP: terraform output vm_public_ip
  • Open Remote Desktop Connection (RDP).
  • Enter the Public IP Address.
  • Login with:
    - Username: adminuser
    - Password: SecureP@ssw0rd123!

To delete all resources, run:

terraform destroy -auto-approve