Integrating Terraform outputs with Ansible
A key distinction between Terraform and Ansible is the way they handle infrastructure references. Unlike Ansible, Terraform does not rely on an inventory because it inherently manages dynamic infrastructure. Instead of tracking hosts, Terraform only requires essential parameters such as the account, region, or VPC ID to deploy services.
Ansible, on the other hand, depends on an inventory to define the infrastructure it interacts with. In our example, after provisioning an Ubuntu server on AWS using Terraform, you need to configure it using Ansible. However, before Ansible can manage this server, you must generate an inventory that includes the necessary connection details.
This section explores various approaches to integrating Terraform outputs with an Ansible inventory, ensuring seamless automation between provisioning and configuration.
Let’s start with the simplest one: building an Ansible inventory using Terraform...
