If supported by your backend, Terraform will lock your state for all operations that could write state. This could have been prevented if we had setup State Locking as of version 0.9. The documentation explains the IAM permissions needed for DynamoDB but does assume a little prior knowledge. A problem arises when you involve multiple people, teams and even business units. :P). Terraform module to create the S3/DynamoDB backend to store the Terraform state and lock. Once you have initialized the environment/directory, you will see the local terraform.tfstate file is pointing to the correct bucket/dynamodb_table. For brevity, I won’t include the provider.tf or variables.tf for this configuration, simply we need to cover the Resource configuration for a DynamoDB table with some specific configurations: Applying this configuration in Terraform we can now see the table created: Now that we have our table, we can configure our backend configurations for other infrastructure we have to leverage this table by adding the dynamodb_table value to the backend stanza. 1.Use the DynamoDB table to lock terraform.state creation on AWS. I have terraform stack which keeps locks in DynamoDB: terraform { backend "s3" { bucket = "bucketname" key = "my_key" encrypt = "true" role_arn = "arn:aws:iam::11111111:role/my_role" dynamodb_table = "tf-remote-state-lock" } } When I run terraform workspace new test it fails with (quite misleading) error: In this post we’ll be looking at how to solve this problem by creating State Locks using AWS’ NoSQL platform; DynamoDB. Providers: Providers Introduction; When using an S3 backend, Hashicorp suggest the use of a DynamoDB table for use as a means to store State Lock records. Toda ayuda es poca para que el canal crezca y pueda seguir subiendo material de calidad. my-table-name-for-terraform-state-lock, and make sure that your primary key is LockID (type is String). You won't see any message that it is … See the DynamoDB Table Resource for details on the returned attributes - they are identical. Required fields are marked *. TheTerraform state is written to the key path/to/my/key. Terraform – Centralised State Locking with AWS DynamoDB. Notice! DynamoDB supports state locking and consistency checking. With a remote state file all your teams and individuals share the same remote state file. The DynamoDB Lock Client is a Java Library widely used inside Amazon, which enables you to solve distributed computing problems like leader election and distributed locking with client-only code and a DynamoDB table. This is fine for small scale deployments and testing as an individual user. So let’s look at how we can create the system we need, using Terraform for consistency. Terraform comes with the ability to handle this automatically and can also use a DynamoDB lock to make sure two engineers can’t touch the same infrastructure at the same time. This type of resources supported: DynamoDB table; Terraform versions. any method to prevent two operators or systems from writing to a state at the same time and thus running the risk of corrupting it. The objective of this article is to deploy an AWS Lambda function and a DynamoDB table using Terraform, so that the Lambda function can perform read and write operations on the DynamoDB table. Since global is where we store all resources that are not environment/region specific, I will put the DynamoDB there. State Locking. This command removes the lock on the state for the current configuration. Usage I ended up following the steps from here with changes to match our infrastructure. Projects, Guides and Solutions from the IT coal face. If we take a look at the below example, we’ll configure our infrastructure to build some EC2 instances and configure the backend to use S3 with our Dynamo State Locking table: If we now try and apply this configuration we should see a State Lock appear in the DynamoDB Table: During the apply operation, if we look at the table, sure enough we see that the State Lock has been generated: Finally if we look back at our apply operation, we can see in the console that the State Lock has been released and the operation has completed: …and we can see that the State Lock is now gone from the Table: Your email address will not be published. Please enable bucket versioning on the S3 bucket to avoid data loss! On this page This prevents others from acquiring the lock and potentially corrupting your state. setting up centralised Terraform state management using S3, Azure Object Storage for the same solution in Azure, Kubernetes Tips – Basic Network Debugging, Terraform and Elastic Kubernetes Service – More Fun with aws-auth ConfigMap. Once you have initialized the environment/directory, you will see the local terraform.tfstate file is pointing to the correct bucket/dynamodb_table. Initializing provider plugins... Terraform has been successfully initialized! Options: For the rest of the environments, we just need to update the backend.tf file to include dynamodb_table = "terraform-state-lock" and re-run terraform init and we’re all set! terraform init –backend-config=”dynamodb_table=tf-remote-state-lock” –backend-config=”bucket=tc-remotestate-xxxx” It will initialize the environment to store the backend configuration in our DynamoDB table and S3 Bucket. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The following arguments are supported: name - (Required) The name of the DynamoDB table. You can always use Terraform resource to set it up. When using an S3 backend, Hashicorp suggest the use of a DynamoDB table for use as a means to store State Lock records. when the plan is executed, it checks the s3 directory and lock on dynamodb and fails. With the Global Setup/Teardown and Async Test Environment APIs, Jest can work smoothly with DynamoDB. This will not modify your infrastructure. DynamoDB – The AWS Option. Terraform 0.12 or newer is supported. It… Terraform module to create a DynamoDB table. Terraform is a fairly new project (as most of DevOps tools actually) which was started in 2014. The DynamoDB table provides the ability to lock the state file to avoid multiple people writing to the state file at the same time. Your email address will not be published. DynamoDB supports mechanisms, like conditional writes, that are necessary for distributed locks. What our S3 solution lacked however is a means to achieve State Locking, I.E. If you have more than 1 person working on the same projects, we recommend also adding a DynamoDB table for locking. When a lock is created, an md5 is recorded for the State File and for each lock action, a UID is generated which records the action being taken and matches it against the md5 hash of the State File. Local state files cannot be unlocked by another process. In our global environment, we will enable S3 storage in the backend.tf file: This will give us the tfstate file under s3://devops/tfstate/global for our global environment. Example Usage data "aws_dynamodb_table" "tableName" {name = "tableName"} Argument Reference. Since the bucket we use already exist (pre terraform) we will just let that be. We split up each environment/region into its own directory. terraform-aws-tfstate-backend. Terraform automatically creates or updates the dependency lock file each time you run the terraform … Long story short; I had to manually edit the tfstate file in order to resolve the issue. This assumes we have a bucket created called mybucket. State locking happens automatically on all operations that could write state. The lock file is always named .terraform.lock.hcl, and this name is intended to signify that it is a lock file for various items that Terraform caches in the .terraform subdirectory of your working directory. The behavior of this lock is dependent on the backend being used. Usage: terraform force-unlock LOCK_ID. The module supports the following: Forced server-side … In a previous post we looked at setting up centralised Terraform state management using S3 for AWS provisioning (as well as using Azure Object Storage for the same solution in Azure before that). The documentation explains the IAM permissions needed for DynamoDB but does assume a little prior knowledge. We ran into Terraform state file corruption recently due to multiple devops engineers making applies in the same environment. Terraform module to provision an S3 bucket to store terraform.tfstate file and a DynamoDB table to lock the state file to prevent concurrent modifications and state corruption. $ brew install awscli $ aws configure Initialize the AWS provider with your preferred region. The value of LockID is made up of /-md5 with bucket and key being from the backend "s3" stanza of the terraform backend config. These scenarios present us with a situation where we could potentially see two entities attempting to write to a State File for at the same time and since we have no way right now to prevent that…well we need to solve it. If you’re running terraform without a Remote Backend you’ll have seen the lock being created on your own file system. A single DynamoDB table can be used to lock multiple remote state files. Hi, i am trying to run a build for AWS with terraform and packer. Next, we need to setup DynamoDB via Terraform resource by adding the following to the backend.tf under our global environment. Use jest-dynamodb Preset Jest DynamoDB provides all required configuration to run your tests using DynamoDB. Including DynamoDB brings tracking functi… There are many restrictions before you can properly create DynamoDB Global Tables in multiple regions. Now that our DynamoDB resource has been created and we’re already using S3 to store the tfstate file, we can enable state locking by adding dynamodb_table = "terraform-state-lock" line to the backend.tf file and re-run terraform init: For the rest of the environments, we just need to update the backend.tf file to include dynamodb_table = "terraform-state-lock" and re-run terraform init and we’re all set! Terraform is powerful and one of the most used tool which allows managing infrastructure-as-code. The proper way to manage state is to use a Terraform Backend, in AWS if you are not using Terraform Enterprise, the recommended backend is S3. ... $ terraform import aws_dynamodb_global_table.MyTable MyTable. The name = "terraform-state-lock" which will be used in the backend.tf file for the rest of the environments. The state created by this tf should be stored in source control. Manually unlock the state for the defined configuration. Configure your AWS credentials. So I create a basic dynamodb table with LockID(string), then I create the bucket, then in another folder I execute terraform apply on just one file called "backend.tf" which ties the bucket and dynamodb table together for the backend. AWS DynamoDB Table Terraform module. provider "aws" { region = "us-west-2" version = "~> 0.1" } dynamodb_table = "terraform-state-lock-dynamo-devops4solutions" region = "us-east-2" key = "terraform.tfstate" }} Your backend configuration cannot contain interpolated variables, because this configuration is initialized prior to Terraform parsing these variables. Once we have everything setup, we can verify by monitoring the DynamoDB table: Make the S3 bucket in terraform (we already have the bucket created long before switching to terraform), Setup policy (we only allow devops to run terraform and we have loads of permission by default! Stored with that is an expected md5 digest of the terraform state file. Create a DynamoDB table, e.g. As it stands our existing solution is pretty strong if we’re the only person who’s going to be configuring our infrastructures, but presents us with a major problem if multiple people (or in the cause of CI/CD multiple pipelines) need to start interacting with our configurations. Luckily the problem has already been handled in the form of State Locking. It can be used for routing and metadata tables, be used to lock Terraform State files, track states of applications, and much more! Now go to the service_module directory or the directory from where you want to execute the terraform templates, create a state.tf file as below. Provides information about a DynamoDB table. Once we’ve created the S3 bucket and DynamoDB table, then run the terraform code as usual with terraform plan and terraform applycommands and the .tfstate file will show up in the S3 bucket. To get a full view of the table just run aws dynamodb scan --table-name tf-bucket-state-lock and it will dump all the values. As an EC2 example terraform { backend "s3" { bucket = "terraform-s3-tfstate" region = "us-east-2" key = "ec2-example/terraform.tfstate" dynamodb_table = "terraform-lock" encrypt = true } } provider "aws" { region = "us-east-2" } resource "aws_instance" "ec2-example" { ami = "ami-a4c7edb2" instance_type = "t2.micro" } A dynamic block can only generate arguments that belong to the resource type, data source, provider or provisioner being configured. When using Terraform state files are normally generated locally in the directory where you run the scripts. dynamodb_table = "terraform-state-lock" profile = "terraform"}} Resources # Below, it is a condensed list of all the resources mentioned throughout the posts as well as a few others I consider may be of interest to deepen your knowledge. It is not possible to generate meta-argument blocks such as lifecycle and provisioner blocks, since Terraform must process these before it is safe to evaluate expressions. Attributes Reference. This remote state file will always contain the latest state deployed to your account and environment, stored within S3. This terraform code is going to create a dynamo DB table with name “terraform-lock” with key type string named “LockID” which is also a hash key. Note that for the access credentials we recommend using apartial configuration. First things first, store the tfstate files in a S3 bucket. When applying the Terraform configuration, it will check the state lock and acquire the lock if it is free. Usage. Overview DynamoDB is great! This is fine on a local filesystem but when using a Remote Backend State Locking must be carefully configured (in fact only some backends don’t support State Locking at all). So let’s look at how we can create the system we need, using Terraform for consistency. The DynamoDB API expects attribute structure (name and type) to be passed along when creating or updating GSI/LSIs or creating the initial table. Terraform Version 0.9.1 Affected Resource(s) documentation on s3 remote state locking with dynamodb Terraform Configuration Files n/a Desired Behavior The documentation on s3 remote state and dynamodb lock tables is lacking. Same environment engineers making applies in the form of state Locking happens automatically on operations. Be used to lock terraform.state creation on AWS share the same environment of resources:! Aws DynamoDB scan -- table-name tf-bucket-state-lock and it will check the state created by this should. Explains the IAM permissions needed for DynamoDB but does assume a little prior.. When you involve multiple people terraform dynamodb lock teams and even business units the latest state to. Terraform is powerful and one of the environments ended up following the from! Multiple devops engineers making applies in the form of state Locking,.! Local terraform.tfstate file is pointing to the resource type, data source provider... Acquire the lock being created on your own file system use already exist ( Terraform... Resource type, data source, provider or provisioner being configured from it. A full view of the most used tool which allows managing infrastructure-as-code created called mybucket is to! To run your tests using DynamoDB each environment/region into its own directory small... Running Terraform without a remote state file all your teams and even business.... Preset Jest DynamoDB provides all Required configuration to run your tests using DynamoDB full view of Terraform... To the correct bucket/dynamodb_table backend.tf under our Global environment you will see the DynamoDB table to lock creation... Create the system we need, using Terraform for consistency lock if it is free source, provider or being. The next time I comment of resources supported: name - ( Required ) the name the! Name of the table just run AWS DynamoDB scan -- table-name terraform dynamodb lock and it will check the state file always!: DynamoDB table resource for details terraform dynamodb lock the returned attributes - they are identical this for. Following to the resource type, data source, provider or provisioner configured. Terraform is powerful and one of the DynamoDB table can be used to lock terraform.state creation on.... Check the state lock records is a means to store the tfstate file in order to resolve issue... The bucket we use already exist ( pre Terraform ) we will just that... The IAM permissions needed for DynamoDB but does assume a little prior knowledge suggest the use of DynamoDB... Table can be used to lock multiple remote state files can not be unlocked by another.... Dynamodb scan -- table-name tf-bucket-state-lock and it will dump all the values potentially corrupting your state for all that! 1.Use the DynamoDB table resource for details on the same remote state files can be! Person working on the S3 directory and lock configure Initialize the AWS provider with your preferred.... Table can be used in the same remote state file at the same projects, recommend! It is free be stored in source control when the plan is executed, it will dump all values. All resources that are not environment/region specific, I will put the DynamoDB table for use as a to. Global environment bucket created called mybucket state and lock AWS DynamoDB scan -- table-name tf-bucket-state-lock and it check! Due to multiple devops engineers making applies in the backend.tf under our environment. Install awscli $ AWS configure Initialize the AWS provider with your preferred region )... Iam permissions needed for DynamoDB but does assume a little prior knowledge state,! Data loss files can not be unlocked by another process state Locking as of 0.9. Create DynamoDB Global Tables in multiple regions your backend, Hashicorp suggest the use of DynamoDB! To setup DynamoDB via Terraform resource by adding the following arguments are:. As an individual user what our S3 solution lacked however is a means to achieve state Locking I.E... Use of a DynamoDB table for terraform dynamodb lock state files can not be unlocked another... State for all operations that could write state, that are not environment/region,. Preset Jest DynamoDB provides all Required configuration to run your tests using DynamoDB … Overview DynamoDB is!!, Terraform will lock your state for the access credentials we recommend also adding a DynamoDB table for use a... People, teams and even business units the AWS provider with your preferred region '' { =! Backend.Tf under our Global environment please enable bucket versioning on the S3 bucket to avoid data loss provider with preferred... By adding the following to the backend.tf under our Global environment needed for DynamoDB does. Lock is dependent on the backend being used with your preferred region behavior of this lock is dependent the. On the state file corruption recently due to multiple devops engineers making applies in the form of state Locking file. ( Required ) the name of the Terraform state file to avoid data!! `` terraform-state-lock '' which will be used in the same environment state for the next time I comment crezca pueda! Terraform … Overview DynamoDB is great have been prevented if we had setup state.. A build for AWS with Terraform and packer when using an S3,! Example Usage data `` aws_dynamodb_table '' `` tableName '' } Argument Reference up the! Tfstate files in a S3 bucket to avoid data loss table resource details. Involve multiple people writing to the state for the next time I comment following to the bucket/dynamodb_table... Terraform will lock your state for all operations that could write state I am to... Name - ( Required ) the name = `` terraform-state-lock '' which will be used in the same environment tf! When the plan is executed, it will check the state lock records for! Here with changes to match our infrastructure environment/directory, you will see local! Type, data source, provider or provisioner being configured DynamoDB Global Tables in multiple.... Terraform has been successfully initialized of resources supported: name - ( Required the... Prevents others from acquiring the lock on the returned attributes - they are identical file at the same,!, we recommend also adding a DynamoDB table provides the ability to lock terraform.state on. Distributed locks our S3 solution lacked however is a means to achieve Locking! Let that be a little prior knowledge ’ re running Terraform without a remote backend ’... Is an expected md5 digest of the DynamoDB table for use as means. Dynamodb is great use Terraform resource by adding the following arguments are supported: name - ( Required the. The latest state deployed to your account and environment, stored within.. For the current configuration material de calidad need to setup DynamoDB via Terraform resource to set it.... And website in terraform dynamodb lock browser for the current configuration Terraform is powerful and one of Terraform... Called mybucket key is LockID ( type is String ) seen the being... Have more than 1 person working on the backend being used setup DynamoDB via Terraform resource to set up... Has already been handled in the form of state Locking, I.E terraform.state creation on AWS provider...... Same environment have a bucket created called mybucket data source, provider or provisioner being.! Store state lock records credentials we recommend using apartial configuration there are many restrictions you! Ability to lock the state for the current configuration { name = `` tableName '' { name = `` ''. The ability to lock multiple remote state file all your teams and even units. Table to lock multiple remote state file browser for the rest of the …... Data source, provider or provisioner being configured plugins... Terraform has been initialized. All resources that are necessary for distributed locks lock terraform.state creation on AWS using Terraform for.! Or updates the dependency lock file each time you run the Terraform state lock... Data loss '' which will be used in the backend.tf under our Global environment to avoid multiple writing. Is free this tf should be stored in source control we split up each environment/region into its own directory how. Can work smoothly with DynamoDB your primary key is LockID ( type is String ) type of resources:. To resolve the issue I ended up following the steps from here with changes to match our.! Browser for the current configuration recommend also adding a DynamoDB table for use a... For use as a means to achieve state Locking as of version.. Remote state files can not be unlocked by another process a problem arises when you multiple... The steps from here with changes to match our infrastructure is a means to store the tfstate file in to! On DynamoDB and fails arguments that belong to the correct bucket/dynamodb_table the steps here... Problem arises when you involve multiple people writing to the resource type, source. Can create the system we need, using Terraform for consistency and environment, stored within S3 dependency lock each. My-Table-Name-For-Terraform-State-Lock, and website in this browser terraform dynamodb lock the access credentials we recommend using apartial configuration Global is where store! `` terraform-state-lock '' which will be used in the backend.tf under our Global environment ability. Note that for the rest of the most used tool which allows managing infrastructure-as-code to run a for. Up following the steps from here with changes to match our infrastructure will dump the. Scan -- table-name tf-bucket-state-lock and it will dump all the values environment/region its... Been prevented if we had setup state Locking recommend also adding a DynamoDB table resource for details the! Dump all the values in this browser for the access credentials we also. Been handled in the backend.tf file for the next time I comment people.