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 /
```
Input the path to communicate with Terraform into the /etc/profile file:
```
echo "PATH='$PATH:/downloads/'" >> /etc/profile
```
Run the following in order to be able to call Terraform:
```
source /etc/profile
```
Call Terraform:
```
terraform
```

Create a Service Account Key within the Instance

Allow the SDK to communicate with GCP:
```
gcloud auth login
```
Enter Y at the prompt.
Click on the link in the output.
Select the Cloud Student account.
Click Allow.
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

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Learning Objectives

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