Using Terraform to Launch a Compute Engine Instance in GCP

Learning how to create major resources with Terraform is important in understanding how Terraform works with GCP. In this hands-on lab, we will walk through what creating a Compute Engine instance looks like and how to configure it.

Learning Objectives

Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:

Create a Service Account

From Google Cloud console’s main navigation, choose IAM & Admin > Service Accounts.
Click Create service account.
Give your service account a name.
Click Create.
In the roles dropdown, select Project > Owner.
Click Continue and then Done.

Log in to the Host Instance and Ensure Terraform Is Installed

From Google Cloud navigation, choose Compute Engine > VM instances.
Click SSH next to terraform-instance.
Use root privileges:
```
sudo -i
```
Change into the root directory:
```
cd /
```
Call Terraform:
```
terraform
```

Create a Service Account Key within the Instance

Allow the SDK to communicate with GCP:
```
gcloud init --console-only
```
Enter Y and Yat the prompt.
Choose your Cloud Project.
Select the Cloud Student account.
Choose Y to configure a default Compute Region and Zone

Choose "us-central1-c"

Copy the code provided.
Paste the code into the terminal.
Create the service account key:

gcloud iam service-accounts keys create /downloads/compute-instance.json --iam-account <SERVICE_ACCOUNT_EMAIL>

Create and Deploy the Configuration File

Create a main.tf file:
```
vim main.tf
```

Paste the following configuration, replacing <PROJECT_NAME> with your project name (found in the top navigation bar of the Google Cloud console):

provider "google" {
  version = "3.5.0"
  credentials = file("/downloads/compute-instance.json")
  project = "<PROJECT_NAME>"
  region  = "us-central1"
  zone    = "us-central1-c"
}

resource "google_compute_network" "vpc_network" {
  name = "terraform-network"
}
resource "google_compute_instance" "vm_instance" {
  name         = "terraform-instance2"
  machine_type = "f1-micro"
  zone         = "us-central1-c"
  boot_disk {
    initialize_params {
      image = "centos-cloud/centos-7"
    }
  }

  network_interface {
    network = google_compute_network.vpc_network.name
    access_config {
    }
  }
}

Save and exit the file by pressing Escape followed by :wq.
Finish up by running terraform init, terraform validate, terraform plan, and terraform apply.

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Using Terraform to Launch a Compute Engine Instance in GCP

About this Hands-on Lab

Learning Objectives

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