Manage Remote Resources

Terraform was created specifically to manage remote resources. We’ll create resources on AWS that are, as of the publication of this course, completely free to create even if you’re not on the AWS Free Tier.

Create a remote VPC

AWS accounts

If you don’t already have an AWS account, you’ll need to create one to follow along. You’ll also need to create a key to access AWS and create resources using the API. Specifically, you’ll need an access key and a secret key. These keys can be created on the AWS web console. Go here for more information.

The simplest thing to do is create a temporary key that grants either access to all or an admin access. If you’re not comfortable creating a temporary admin key, then you’ll need to create an IAM role that gives you the capability to create all the resources we need here.

First, think about what’s new while we create a directory named ltthw_aws_vpc. Since we may come across something we won’t understand, we might want to quickly do some research. Don’t worry if our research doesn’t make too much sense yet. We’ll review the material as we go.

Secret key management

In the below listing, and all future AWS listings, we’ll need to replace TF_VAR_region, TF_VAR_YOURACCESSSKEY, and TF_VAR_YOURSECRETKEY with the region, access key, and secret key values we covered in the “AWS Accounts” note above.