Terraform is one of the best automation providers for DevOps purposes used by hundred of Engineers. It is an open source tool that can be used by anyone for free. In this article I will explain how to deploy windows and linux virtual machines on Azure using a Terraform template.
First things first you will need to have the az cli installed. Then you will have to set your subscription on your current powershell session.
az account set --subscription "12abc123-4567-1234-12345-asdr4334fsd"
Then you will need to create an app role assignment for your subscription. This will be used from terraform for the provision of the resources.
az ad sp create-for-rbac --role="Contributor" --scopes="/subscriptions/12abc123-4567-1234-12345-asdr4334fsd"
That’s all. You can now deploy your resources through terraform. In the links below I have provided my Github repository along with instructions for the template use.
A tricky part of the deployment is the vm image selection. In order to locate the available azure images names you can use:
az vm image list
Enumeration of available images:
[
{
"offer": "CentOS",
"publisher": "OpenLogic",
"sku": "7.5",
"urn": "OpenLogic:CentOS:7.5:latest",
"urnAlias": "CentOS",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "debian-10",
"publisher": "Debian",
"sku": "10",
"urn": "Debian:debian-10:10:latest",
"urnAlias": "Debian",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "flatcar-container-linux-free",
"publisher": "kinvolk",
"sku": "stable",
"urn": "kinvolk:flatcar-container-linux-free:stable:latest",
"urnAlias": "Flatcar",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "openSUSE-Leap",
"publisher": "SUSE",
"sku": "42.3",
"urn": "SUSE:openSUSE-Leap:42.3:latest",
"urnAlias": "openSUSE-Leap",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "RHEL",
"publisher": "RedHat",
"sku": "7-LVM",
"urn": "RedHat:RHEL:7-LVM:latest",
"urnAlias": "RHEL",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "SLES",
"publisher": "SUSE",
"sku": "15",
"urn": "SUSE:SLES:15:latest",
"urnAlias": "SLES",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "UbuntuServer",
"publisher": "Canonical",
"sku": "18.04-LTS",
"urn": "Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-LTS:latest",
"urnAlias": "UbuntuLTS",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "WindowsServer",
"publisher": "MicrosoftWindowsServer",
"sku": "2019-Datacenter",
"urn": "MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2019-Datacenter:latest",
"urnAlias": "Win2019Datacenter",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "WindowsServer",
"publisher": "MicrosoftWindowsServer",
"sku": "2016-Datacenter",
"urn": "MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2016-Datacenter:latest",
"urnAlias": "Win2016Datacenter",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "WindowsServer",
"publisher": "MicrosoftWindowsServer",
"sku": "2012-R2-Datacenter",
"urn": "MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2012-R2-Datacenter:latest",
"urnAlias": "Win2012R2Datacenter",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "WindowsServer",
"publisher": "MicrosoftWindowsServer",
"sku": "2012-Datacenter",
"urn": "MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2012-Datacenter:latest",
"urnAlias": "Win2012Datacenter",
"version": "latest"
},
{
"offer": "WindowsServer",
"publisher": "MicrosoftWindowsServer",
"sku": "2008-R2-SP1",
"urn": "MicrosoftWindowsServer:WindowsServer:2008-R2-SP1:latest",
"urnAlias": "Win2008R2SP1",
"version": "latest"
}
]
In order to narrow down and find Ubuntu available images (use grep instead of Select-string for Unix environments)
az vm image list-offers -p canonical -l eastus | Select-String name
Ubuntu images names for east us region:
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-confidential-vm-experimental",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-confidential-vm-focal",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-confidential-vm-test-focal",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-minimal-focal-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-minimal-groovy-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-minimal-hirsute-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-minimal-impish-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-minimal-jammy-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-private-fips-motorola",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-att",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-csw",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-dd",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-nestle",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-servicenow",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-shell",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-ub01",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-advanced-sla-unp",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-bionic",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-bionic-fips",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-focal",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-focal-fips",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-hidden-msft-fips",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-microsoft",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-trusty",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-xenial",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-pro-xenial-fips",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-eoan",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-focal",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-focal-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-groovy",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-groovy-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-hirsute",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-hirsute-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-impish",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-impish-daily",
"name": "0001-com-ubuntu-server-jammy-daily",
"name": "0002-com-ubuntu-minimal-bionic-daily",
"name": "0002-com-ubuntu-minimal-disco-daily",
"name": "0002-com-ubuntu-minimal-focal-daily",
"name": "0002-com-ubuntu-minimal-xenial-daily",
"name": "0003-com-ubuntu-minimal-eoan-daily",
"name": "0003-com-ubuntu-server-trusted-vm",
"name": "test-ubuntu-premium-offer-0002",
"name": "Ubuntu15.04Snappy",
"name": "Ubuntu15.04SnappyDocker",
"name": "UbuntuServer",
Specific information about an image:
az vm image list -p canonical -l eastus --offer 0001-com-ubuntu-pro-bionic --all --sku pro-18_04-lts
Inside linux or windows folder depending on the resource you want to deploy apply your terraform configuration
terraform init terraform apply
After the successful run of the terraform script.
In order to delete the environment you can run
terraform destroy
By committing destroy your eight resources that deal with your virtual machine will disappear.
Repository for the code:
https://github.com/geralexgr/terraform-az-lin-win
Video tutorial on YouTube:
