Quickstart: Create a VM instance using Terraform
In this quickstart, you learn how to use Terraform to create a Compute Engine Virtual Machine (VM) instance and connect to that VM instance.
Hashicorp Terraform is an Infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that lets you provision and manage cloud infrastructure. Terraform provider for Google Cloud (Google Cloud provider) lets you provision and manage Google Cloud infrastructure.
Before you begin
To use an online terminal with the gcloud CLI and Terraform already set up, activate Cloud Shell:
At the bottom of this page, a Cloud Shell session starts and displays a command-line prompt. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.
-
Create or select a Google Cloud project.
-
Create a Google Cloud project:
gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID
Replace
PROJECT_ID
with a name for the Google Cloud project you are creating. -
Select the Google Cloud project that you created:
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
Replace
PROJECT_ID
with your Google Cloud project name.
-
-
Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.
-
Enable the Compute Engine API:
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
-
Grant roles to your user account. Run the following command once for each of the following IAM roles:
roles/compute.instanceAdmin.v1
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID --member="USER_IDENTIFIER" --role=ROLE
- Replace
PROJECT_ID
with your project ID. -
Replace
USER_IDENTIFIER
with the identifier for your user account. For examples, see Represent workforce pool users in IAM policies. - Replace
ROLE
with each individual role.
- Replace
Prepare the environment
Clone the GitHub repository containing Terraform samples:
git clone https://github.com/terraform-google-modules/terraform-docs-samples.git --single-branch
Go to the directory that contains the quickstart sample:
cd terraform-docs-samples/compute/quickstart/create_vm
Review the Terraform files
Review the main.tf
file. This file defines the Google Cloud
resources that you want to create.
cat main.tf
The output is similar to the following
This file describes the
google_compute_instance
resource, which is the Terraform resource for the
Compute Engine VM instance. google_compute_instance
is configured to
have the following properties:
name
is set tomy-vm
.machine_type
is set ton1-standard-1
.zone
is set tous-central1-a
.boot_disk
sets the boot disk for the instance.network_interface
is set to use the default network in your Google Cloud project.
Create the Compute Engine VM instance
In Cloud Shell, run the following command to verify that Terraform is available:
terraform
The output should be similar to the following:
Usage: terraform [global options] <subcommand> [args] The available commands for execution are listed below. The primary workflow commands are given first, followed by less common or more advanced commands. Main commands: init Prepare your working directory for other commands validate Check whether the configuration is valid plan Show changes required by the current configuration apply Create or update infrastructure destroy Destroy previously-created infrastructure
Initialize Terraform by running the following command. This command prepares your workspace so Terraform can apply your configuration.
terraform init
The output should be similar to the following:
Initializing the backend... Initializing provider plugins... - Finding latest version of hashicorp/google... - Installing hashicorp/google v5.35.0... - Installed hashicorp/google v5.35.0 (signed by HashiCorp) Terraform has created a lock file .terraform.lock.hcl to record the provider selections it made above. Include this file in your version control repository so that Terraform can guarantee to make the same selections by default when you run "terraform init" in the future. Terraform has been successfully initialized!
Validate the Terraform configuration by running the following command. This command takes the following actions:
- Verifies that the syntax of
main.tf
is correct. - Shows a preview of the resources that will be created.
terraform plan
The output should be similar to the following:
Plan: 1 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy. Note: You didn't use the -out option to save this plan, so Terraform can't guarantee to take exactly these actions if you run "terraform apply" now.
- Verifies that the syntax of
Apply the configuration to provision resources described in the
main.tf
file:terraform apply
When prompted, enter
yes
.Terraform calls Google Cloud APIs to create the VM instance defined in the
main.tf
file.The output should be similar to the following:
Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed
Connect to the VM instance
Connect to the VM instance you just created by running the following command:
gcloud compute ssh --zone=us-central1-a my-vm
Clean up
To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, delete the Google Cloud project with the resources.
In Cloud Shell, run the following command to delete the Terraform resources:
terraform destroy
When prompted, enter yes
.
The output should be similar to the following:
Destroy complete! Resources: 1 destroyed.
What's next
- Learn how to deploy a basic Flask web server using Terraform.
- Learn how to store Terraform state in a Cloud Storage bucket.