Leveraging Terraform to automatically set up the attacker VM instance

The previous section primarily focused on setting up the attacker VM instance manually. This was necessary because we will utilize this VM instance (kali-00) as a reference to create a golden image. By creating a golden image, we can capture the desired configuration and settings of the VM instance, making it easier to replicate and deploy similar instances with the same specifications in the future.

Note that another approach when automating the process of setting up VM instances involves the usage of IaC tools such as Ansible to set up what’s inside the VM instance (in addition to the usage of Terraform for setting up, configuring, and managing the cloud resources). When preparing VM instances, it is important that we have a good understanding of the distinct advantages and differences of each approach. Golden images are well suited to scenarios where a predefined and static environment is required since...