Getting Started with Infrastructure as Code and OpenTofu on Example Academy

Overview

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chapter Overview 🔗

Managing IT infrastructure can be complicated, but Infrastructure as Code (IaC) makes it easier to define infrastructure using code. In this chapter, you’ll learn what IaC is, why it’s important, and how it helps manage infrastructure faster, more reliably, and more easily scale. You’ll also explore two main ways to write IaC: declarative, where you describe the desired outcome, and imperative, where you list the steps to get there.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Infrastructure Provisioning: The Manual Way 🔗

Applications fuel the growth and efficiency of modern businesses. They depend on infrastructure—such as compute, storage, and networking—to run effectively. Traditionally, system administrators and IT professionals managed this infrastructure manually, physically setting up servers, network devices, and other hardware components needed for business applications.

In the early days, every business application required dedicated physical hardware. This meant deploying and configuring individual servers for each application—a time-intensive and resource-heavy process. Virtualization revolutionized this approach by allowing multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on a single physical server using hypervisors, making better use of underutilized hardware. Despite this innovation, infrastructure provisioning and configuration were still mostly done manually, which brought its own set of challenges.

Introducing OpenTofu

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Introducing OpenTofu 🔗

According to its documentation,

OpenTofu is an infrastructure as code tool that lets you define both cloud and on-prem resources in human-readable configuration files that you can version, reuse, and share. You can then use a consistent workflow to provision and manage all of your infrastructure throughout its lifecycle. OpenTofu can manage low-level components like compute, storage, and networking resources, as well as high-level components like DNS entries and SaaS features.

OpenTofu: Installation, Workflow, and Building Blocks

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Installing OpenTofu 🔗

OpenTofu is very easy to install and works on various Linux, Windows, and MacOS distributions. The installation method differs depending on your choice of operating system. The easiest is to use the installer script made available in the official documentation.

Download the Installer script:

curl -fsSL https://get.opentofu.org/install-opentofu.sh -o install-opentofu.sh

Grant execute permissions and review the script:

chmod +x install-opentofu.sh && less install-opentofu.sh

Install using the script:

./install-opentofu.sh --install-method standalone

How Does OpenTofu Work? 🔗

OpenTofu leverages application programming interfaces (APIs) to create and manage resources on cloud platforms and other services. Through providers, OpenTofu can interact with virtually any platform or service that has an accessible API.

Core Concepts of OpenTofu

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Providers 🔗

OpenTofu uses providers, which are plugins enabling it to communicate with platforms like cloud services, SaaS applications, and APIs. To use OpenTofu, you must specify the providers your infrastructure needs. These providers are then downloaded and configured to work within your environment. Some may require additional details, such as the region of a cloud service or specific API endpoints, to function properly.

Providers allow OpenTofu to manage specific types of resources and data. OpenTofu cannot interact with infrastructure platforms without providers, as a provider implements every resource type. Most providers are designed to handle a particular platform, whether a cloud service or an on-premises system. Some offer utility functions like generating unique identifiers or handling small automation tasks.