AWS-ContainerLab-Deployment/terraform

Terraform Deployment

This directory contains the Terraform configuration files for deploying an AWS EC2 instance with ContainerLab.

Prerequisites

• Terraform installed on your local machine
• AWS CLI configured with your credentials
• An AWS account with the necessary permissions

Configuration

1. Backend Configuration

   To easily manage the backend configuration, we will store the tfstate files on an S3 bucket.
   To update it, please adapt the backend.conf file, using the provided sample as a reference.

2. Set AWS Credentials and Variables

   Rename the terraform.tfvars.sample to terraform.tfvars and update the following variables with your own values:

   AWS_ACCESS_KEY = "your_access_key"
   AWS_SECRET_KEY = "your_secret_key"
   AWS_KEY_NAME   = "your_key_pair_name"
   AWS_KEY_LOCATION = "path_to_your_private_key"
   

   Important : Never commit terraform.tfvars to version control as it contains sensitive information.

3. Customize Terraform Variables

You can customize the deployment by modifying the Terraform variables in variables.tf.

Action made by the EC2.tf file

1. AWS Provider Configuration: It sets up the AWS provider with the region, access key, and secret key specified in the Terraform variables.

   provider "aws" {
     region     = var.AWS_REGION
     access_key = var.AWS_ACCESS_KEY
     secret_key = var.AWS_SECRET_KEY
   }
   

2. Security Group Creation: It creates a new AWS security group named netlab_sg. This security group allows all outbound traffic and only inbound SSH (port 22) traffic from the IP address specified in the AWS_LOCAL_IP variable.

   resource "aws_security_group" "netlab_sg" {
     ...
   }
   

3. EC2 Instance Creation: It creates a new AWS EC2 instance with the specified AMI, instance type, and key pair. The instance is associated with the netlab_sg security group. The instance is tagged with the name "ContainerLab".

   resource "aws_instance" "containerlab_host" {
     ...
   }
   

4. Root Block Device Configuration: It configures the root block device of the EC2 instance with a volume size of 128 GB, a volume type of gp2, encryption disabled, and deletion on termination enabled.

   root_block_device {
     ...
   }
   

5. Local Provisioners: It uses two local provisioners to perform actions on the local machine after the EC2 instance is created:

   • The first provisioner writes the public IP address of the newly created EC2 instance to the ../ansible/inventory file.

     provisioner "local-exec" {
       command = "echo ${aws_instance.containerlab_host.public_ip} > ../ansible/inventory"
     }
     

   • The second provisioner waits for 20 seconds and then runs the Ansible playbook install_containerlab.yml using the ansible-playbook command. The playbook is run against the new EC2 instance.

     provisioner "local-exec" {
       command = <<EOT
         sleep 20
         ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=False ansible-playbook \
         -u admin \
         -i ../ansible/inventory \
         --private-key ${var.AWS_KEY_LOCATION} \
         ../ansible/install_containerlab.yml 
       EOT
     }
     

These actions together set up an AWS environment with a configured EC2 instance ready to run ContainerLab.