Best Terraform Interview Questions

In this post let’s look at some of the common Terraform Interview Questions today.

Terraform History

Hashicorp is a company founded by HashiCorp. Their first product was called Terraform. Terraform is a tool for managing infrastructure. It helps automate the creation and update of configuration files for AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), OpenStack, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, and many others. In short, it’s a way to manage infrastructure.

  1. What is Terraform?

Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. It provides a simple way to manage complex cloud environments using plain-text configuration files. These configuration files describe how to build and change your environment, including AWS resources, VPC subnets, security groups, IAM users, and more. You can use these configuration files to create and destroy infrastructure at any time, without having to provision or deprovision servers, networks, or instances.

2. Why do we need Terraform?

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) defines cloud native computing as “a model for developing, deploying, operating, and managing applications in distributed systems”. In order to achieve this goal, CNCF recommends adopting a set of best practices called the Kubernetes Conventions. One of those conventions is to have a well-defined lifecycle management system that enables developers to easily deploy, update, and delete their application components. Terraform makes it easy to define and apply changes to infrastructure.

3. How does Terraform work?

Terraform uses declarative language to define what resources should look like, where they should live, and how they should interact with each other. When you run terraform plan, Terraform reads the configuration file and outputs a plan describing what actions would be necessary to make the desired state happen. If no errors occur, then Terraform takes care of making sure everything happens exactly as described in the configuration file.

4. How do I get started with Terraform?

You can download the latest release of Terraform here. To learn about installing Terraform, check out our Getting Started guide. Once installed, you can start working with Terraform by running terraform init. This command creates a directory named.terraform in your home directory. From there, you can open the.terraform/config.tf file in your favorite text editor.

5. What are some examples of Terraform usage?

To give you an idea of how Terraform works, let’s walk through an example of a basic deployment. First, we’ll create a new EC2 instance. We’ll call this instance myinstance. Then, we’ll add a network interface to connect to the internet. Finally, we’ll launch the instance. Here’s the code we’d use to accomplish this task:
resource “aws_instance” “myinstance” {
ami “ami-0c9d8e80f9bccc76”
instance_type “t2.micro”
key_name “ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAACAQDgxrKZzvqpRmjYJhLnkVXlIWGwPQT+uHUiOoMxBZxU6SgUZ4G/q6f9y8qHpN+hA8Yv3QvOqz+1/7lXbw0b3L0bxw7KW/ZV+6JwH5vQ8c7+yZJg3zR6PvxPYd/nYB/Z7YxYcj5zgx7z+d/3xC/oXQx2jyB7LZ9jZ/4K6kp/fP4zXxh/k9Q+q/k/t/

6. Can I use Terraform without having access to AWS?

Yes! Terraform supports local mode where you run Terraform locally instead of connecting to AWS. In local mode, Terraform creates temporary AWS credentials and connects to them to create resources. Local mode is useful if you want to test out Terraform before you deploy it to production.

7. What are some of the most popular Terraform features?

Terraform offers three primary features: Resources, Providers, and Data Sources. These are covered in more detail below.

Resources – A resource describes something that exists in AWS. For example, a VPC describes a virtual private network (VPN), a security group describes firewall rules, and an EC2 instance describes a running server. Each resource has attributes that define how it behaves and how it looks.

Providers – A provider describes how to connect to AWS services. There are two types of providers: Provider Interface (API) providers and Resource Provisioners. API providers provide a way to interact with AWS services via their APIs. Resource provisioners take care of actually creating resources in AWS.

Data Sources – A data source describes how to read data from external sources. For example, you might use a data source to pull information about the IP addresses currently connected to your VPN.

8. How does Terraform compare to other tools?

Terraform was built with a unique philosophy. Rather than being a generic tool to configure anything, Terraform focuses on infrastructure as a service. That means that it only supports providers that offer managed services.

If you’re looking for a general purpose tool, there are plenty of other options, including Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack, and others. However, these tools aren’t focused on infrastructure as a service, so they won’t always work well with managed services.

9. How do I update my AWS environment?

To update your AWS environment, first run terraform plan to ensure no errors occur before updating. Then, run terraform apply. This will take some time depending on the size of your AWS environment.

10. Can I use Terraform with non-AWS environments?

Yes! Terraform works with any provider that supports the terraform.tfstate format. 7. How do I remove an object from my AWS environment?

If you need to delete an object, you can use terraform destroy. This will prompt you to confirm the deletion. After confirming, the object will be removed.

11. What are some disadvantages of Terraform?

One disadvantage of Terraform is that it requires a lot of upfront planning. If you want to change anything about your infrastructure, you need to go back and make changes to your terraform modules. Also, if you’re not careful, you can end up with a lot of duplicate configurations.

12. What are some best practices for using Terraform?

It’s recommended to always test any changes before deploying them. To avoid duplicating configurations, you should only define what you actually need.

13. What are some things I should know about Terraform?

You may need to think about how to manage different environments. For instance, if you’re working on a private project, you might want to keep your public IP addresses hidden. Or maybe you’re working on something that will eventually be released publicly. In these cases, you’ll need to decide whether you want to expose your IP address to the internet.

14. What are some examples of Terraform usage?

Our customers range from startups to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve worked with many of these businesses to help them scale their infrastructure to meet demand. Here are a couple of examples:

– Airbnb uses Terraform to manage its entire infrastructure, including its database clusters, application services, monitoring systems, and much more.

– Netflix uses Terraform to manage their AWS accounts and deploy their software across multiple regions.

– Spotify uses Terraform to manage all of their data centers, including their CDN, DNS, mail, and backup solutions.

– Square uses Terraform to automate the deployment of their microservices architecture.

Terraform Features to prepare for interview

1. Terraform is a tool for managing infrastructure in cloud environments. It provides a way to describe the desired state of your environment (e.g., what VMs should exist) and then change your environment to match that description.

2. A terraformed resource is any resource whose configuration is changed by Terraform. These changes take effect immediately after they’re applied.

3. You might use Terraform to create and destroy VMs, add/remove network interfaces, and configure storage volumes.

4. Terraform works by applying configuration files describing your desired state. When you run Terraform, it applies these configuration files to your existing infrastructure. If the resulting state doesn’t match the desired state, Terraform makes the necessary changes to bring your infrastructure into alignment.

5. Terraform supports two types of operations: _resource_ and _provider_. Resource operations apply changes directly to the underlying infrastructure. Provider operations manage the lifecycle of Terraform itself.

6. Terraform uses a set of variables to represent the current state of your infrastructure. Variables provide a convenient way to store information that can later be accessed and referenced in configuration files.

7. Terraform has three primary data structures: _resources_, _variables_, and _modules_. Resources define the actual objects that make up your infrastructure. Variables hold information about those resources. Modules are collections of related Terraform code that work together to perform a particular task.

8. Terraform modules are organized into folders called _paths_. Each path contains one or more Terraform modules.

9. Terraform modules have a name, version number, author, license, and documentation URL.

10. Terraform modules are stored in a repository called _GitHub_. GitHub stores each module’s history, including who wrote it, when they wrote it, and whether anyone else has contributed to it.

11. Terraform modules are written in the Go programming language.

12. Terraform modules are compiled into binary format before being uploaded to GitHub.

13. Terraform modules are downloaded from GitHub to your local machine using the go get command.

14. Terraform is open source

Open Source means anyone can access the code and contribute to it. Anyone can review changes to the code, suggest improvements, and report bugs.

15. Terraform supports both public clouds and private clouds

Public clouds are run by companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Private clouds are run by businesses and organizations. Terraform works with both types of clouds.

16. Terraform is distributed under Apache 2.0 license

The Apache License Version 2.0 is a free software license that lets people share their work freely. It’s often used for open source projects.

17. Terraform is written in Go

Go is a language developed at Google. It’s designed to be simple, safe, fast, reliable, and productive.

Some videos on Terraform interview questions

[content-egg module=Youtube]

Books & Trainings for Terraform Interview Preparation

[content-egg module=AmazonNoApi]

[content-egg module=Udemy]

Interview questions

wpsbutton
We will be happy to hear your thoughts

Leave a reply

Ads Blocker Image Powered by Code Help Pro

Ads Blocker Detected!!!

We have detected that you are using extensions to block ads. Please support us by disabling these ads blocker.

Powered By
100% Free SEO Tools - Tool Kits PRO
Cloud Technologies Blog
Logo
Compare items
  • Total (0)
Compare
0
Shopping cart