Terraform-Associate-003 Questions and Answers

In Terraform, the backend configuration, which includes details about where and how state is stored, is specified within theterraformblock of your configuration. This block is the correct place to define the backend type and its configuration parameters, such as the location of the state file for a local backend or the bucket details for a remote backend like S3.References= This practice is outlined in Terraform's core documentation, which provides examples and guidelines on how to configure various aspects of Terraform's behavior, including state backends .

The terraform init command is used to initialize a working directory containing Terraform configuration files. This command performs several different initialization steps to prepare the current working directory for use with Terraform, which includes initializing the backend, installing provider plugins, and copying any modules referenced in the configuration. However, it does not validate whether all required variables are present; that is a task performed by terraform plan or terraform apply1.

References = This information can be verified from the official Terraform documentation on the terraform init command provided by HashiCorp Developer1.

Any user with permission to apply a plan can apply it, not only the user that generated it. This allows for collaboration and delegation of tasks among team members.

This is how Terraform manages most dependencies between resources, by using the references between them in the configuration files. For example, if resource A depends on resource B, Terraform will create resource B first and then pass its attributes to resource A.

The default “local” Terraform backend stores the state file in a local file named terraform.tfstate, which can be used to track and manage the state of your infrastructure3.

These are some of the benefits of using Sentinel with Terraform Cloud/Terraform Enterprise, as they allow you to implement logic-based policies that can access and evaluate the Terraform plan, state, and configuration. The other options are not true, as Sentinel does not manage cloud access keys, and Sentinel policies are written in Sentinel language, not HCL.

This is a secure way to inject sensitive variables into your Terraform run, as they will not be stored in any file or source code repository. You can also use environment variables or variable files with encryption to pass sensitive variables to Terraform.

 This is a quick way to inspect the state file and find the information you need without modifying anything5. The other options are either incorrect or inefficient.

The module source path that does not specify a remote module is source = "module/consul". This specifies a local module, which is a module that is stored in a subdirectory of the current working directory. The other options are all examples of remote modules, which are modules that are stored outside of the current working directory and can be accessed by various protocols, such as Git, HTTP, or the Terraform Registry. Remote modules are useful for sharing and reusing code across different configurations and environments. References = [Module Sources], [Local Paths], [Terraform Registry], [Generic Git Repository], [GitHub]

Terraform is built on a plugin-based architecture, enabling developers to extend Terraform by writing new plugins or compiling modified versions of existing plugins1. Terraform plugins are executable binaries written in Go that expose an implementation for a specific service, such as a cloud resource, SaaS platform, or API2. If there is no existing provider for your API, you can create one using the Terraform Plugin SDK3 or the Terraform Plugin Framework4. References =

•1: Plugin Development - How Terraform Works With Plugins | Terraform | HashiCorp Developer

•2: Lab: Terraform Plug-in Based Architecture - GitHub

•3: Terraform Plugin SDK - Terraform by HashiCorp

•4: HashiCorp Terraform Plugin Framework Now Generally Available

State locking prevents other users from modifying the state file while a Terraform operation is in progress. This prevents conflicts and data loss1.

This will enable additional logging messages to find out from which paths Terraform is loading providers referenced in your Terraform configuration files, as it will set the log level to TRACE, which is the most verbose and detailed level.

 This is the command that can add existing resources into Terraform state, by matching them with the corresponding configuration blocks in your files. 

The purpose of state in Terraform is to keep track of the real-world resources managed by Terraform, mapping them to the configuration. The state file contains metadata about these resources, such as resource IDs and other important attributes, which Terraform uses to plan and manage infrastructure changes. The state enables Terraform to know what resources are managed by which configurations and helps in maintaining the desired state of the infrastructure.References= This role of state in Terraform is outlined in Terraform's official documentation,emphasizing its function in mapping configuration to real-world resources and storing vital metadata .

This is the Terraform style convention for indenting a nesting level compared to the one above it. The other options are not consistent with the Terraform style guide.

This is what state locking accomplishes, by preventing other users from modifying the state file while a Terraform operation is in progress. This prevents conflicts and data loss.

You should run terraform init after you start coding a new Terraform project and before you run terraform plan for the first time. This command will initialize the working directory by downloading the required providers and modules, creating the initial state file, and performing other necessary tasks. References = : Initialize a Terraform Project

You must initialize your working directory before running terraform validate, as it will ensure that all the required plugins and modules are installed and configured properly. If you skip this step, you may encounter errors or inconsistencies when validating your configuration files.

Terraform validate reports configuration consistency errors, such as declaring a resource identifier more than once. This means that the same resource type and name combination isused for multiple resource blocks, which is not allowed in Terraform. For example, resource "aws_instance" "example" {...} cannot be used more than once in the same configuration. Terraform validate does not report errors related to module versions, state differences, or formatting issues, as these are not relevant for checking the configuration syntax and structure. References = [Validate Configuration], [Resource Syntax]

You can configure a backend in your Terraform code before initializing it. Initializing a backend will store the state file remotely and enable features like locking and workspaces. References = [Terraform Backends]

Option C is the correct way to configure multiple providers in a Terraform configuration. Each provider block must have a name attribute that specifies which provider it configures2. The other options are either missing the name attribute or using an invalid syntax.

This is the recommended way to use a remote backend that needs authentication, as it allows you to provide the credentials via environment variables, command-line arguments, or interactive prompts, without storing them in the Terraform configuration files.

You cannot reference a resource created with for_each using a splat (*) expression, as it will not work with resources that have non-numeric keys. You need to use a for expression instead to iterate over the resource instances.

These are features of Terraform Cloud, which is a hosted service that provides a web-based UI, remote state storage, remote operations, collaboration features, and more for managing your Terraform infrastructure.

You can install third party plugins using terraform init, as long as you specify the plugin directory in your configuration or as a command-line argument. You can also use the terraform providers mirror command to create a local mirror of providers from any source.

The public Terraform Module Registry automatically exposes all the information about published modules, including required input variables, optional input variables and default values, and outputs. This helps users to understand how to use and configure the modules.

To output returned values from a child module in the Terraform CLI output, you need to declare the output in both the child module and the root module. The child module output will return the value to the root module, and the root module output will display the value in the CLI. References = [Terraform Outputs]

This is the best time to run terraform validate, as it will check your code for syntax errors, typos, and missing arguments before you attempt to create a plan. The other options are either incorrect or unnecessary.

This is how the Terraform Cloud integration differs from other state backends such as S3, Consul, etc., as it allows you to perform remote operations on Terraform Cloud’s servers instead of your local machine. The other options are either incorrect or irrelevant.

This is a bad practice, as it exposes your credentials to anyone who can access your configuration files or state files. You should use environment variables, credential files, or other mechanisms to provide credentials to Terraform.

Terraform providers are not always installed from the Internet. There are other ways to install provider plugins, such as from a local mirror or cache, from a local filesystemdirectory, or from a network filesystem. These methods can be useful for offline or air-gapped environments, or for customizing the installation process. You can configure the provider installation methods using the provider_installation block in the CLI configuration file.

The Terraform Cloud private registry provides the ability to restrict modules to members of Terraform Cloud or Enterprise organizations. This allows you to share modules within your organization without exposing them to the public. The private registry also supports importing modules from your private VCS repositories. The public Terraform Module Registry, on the other hand, publishes modules from public Git repositories and makes them available to any user of Terraform. References = : Private Registry - Terraform Cloud : Terraform Registry - Provider Documentation

Changing the Terraform backend after performing the initialterraform applyis technically possible but strongly discouraged. This is because changing backends can lead to complexities in state management, requiring manual intervention such as state migration to ensure consistency. Terraform's documentation and best practices advise planning the backend configuration carefully before applying Terraform configurations to avoid such changes.References= This guidance is consistent with Terraform's official documentation, which recommends careful consideration and planning of backend configurations to avoid the need for changes.

This is how you specify a module’s version when publishing it to the public Terraform Module Registry, as it uses the tags from your version control system (such as GitHub or GitLab) to identify module versions. You need to use semantic versioning for your tags, such as v1.0.0.

The terraform fmt command is used to rewrite Terraform configuration files to a canonical format and style. This command applies a subset of the Terraform language style conventions, along with other minor adjustments for readability. Running this command on your configuration files before committing them to source control can help ensure consistency of style between different Terraform codebases, and can also make diffs easier to read. You can also use the -check and -diff options to check if the files are formatted and display the formatting changes respectively2. Running the terraform fmt command during the code linting phase of your CI/CD process can help automate this process and enforce the formatting standards for your team. References = [Command: fmt]2

This is the backend that the Terraform CLI uses by default, unless you specify a different backend in your configuration. The local backend stores the state file in a local file named terraform.tfstate, which can be used to track and manage the state of your infrastructure.

You do not need to use different Terraform commands depending on the cloud provider you use. Terraform commands are consistent across different providers, as they operate on the Terraform configuration files and state files, not on the provider APIs directly.

Setting the TF_LOG environment variable to DEBUG causes debug messages to be logged into stdout, along with other log levels such as TRACE, INFO, WARN, and ERROR. This can be useful for troubleshooting or debugging purposes.

You need to write Terraform configuration files for the existing infrastructure that you want to import into Terraform, otherwise Terraform will not know how to manage it. The configuration files should match the type and name of the resources that you want to import.

This is the type of block that is used to construct a collection of nested configuration blocks, by using a for_each argument to iterate over a collection value and generate a nested block for each element. For example, you can use a dynamic block to create multiple ingress rules for a security group resource.

To import existing resources into Terraform, you need to do two things1:

• Write a resource configuration block for each resource, matching the type and name used in your state file.
• Run terraform import for each resource, specifying its address and ID. There is no such command as terraform Import-gcp, and provisioning new VMs with the same names will not import them into Terraform.