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Updating VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) with Terraform and HashiCorp Vault
As I dive back into an older project involving VMware products and Terraform, I am reminded of the power and flexibility of these technologies. In this blog post, I will share my experience with using Terraform to update VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) with values provided in a variable file, and how HashiCorp Vault can be used to securely store sensitive information such as passwords.
Why Use Terraform?
——————–
Terraform is an open source infrastructure as code tool that allows you to define the entire infrastructure in a language called HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) and JSON files. One of the main reasons I prefer using Terraform over other tools is its ability to easily deliver infrastructure across different infrastructures: public cloud, private cloud, Kubernetes. With Terraform, you can write your configuration files, test them (with plan) and then apply them to the infrastructure to get your resources deployed.
Using Terraform with HashiCorp Vault
———————————–
In this example, we will use Terraform to update the VCSA JSON template with values provided in a variable file. We will not be using the vSphere provider, but rather the local provider for modifying the template file and null provider to run a local command.
Here is the basic structure of our project:
* vault.tf: This file contains the Terraform configuration for updating the VCSA JSON template with values provided in a variable file.
The first step is to create a HashiCorp Vault instance and store the passwords required for setting up VCSA. We can use the following command to create a Vault instance:
“`
hashicorp vault init
“`
Once the Vault instance is created, we can store the passwords in the Vault using the following command:
“`
hashicorp vault write my-password /path/to/my/password
“`
We can then reference these stored passwords in our Terraform configuration file (vault.tf) using the following syntax:
“`
resource “hashicorp_vault_secret” “my_password” {
path = “/path/to/my/password”
}
“`
Updating VCSA with Terraform
—————————–
Now that we have stored the passwords in HashiCorp Vault, we can use Terraform to update the VCSA JSON template with these values. Here is an example of how we can do this:
“`
resource “null_resource” “update_vcsa” {
provisioner “local-exec” {
command = “sudo ./install.sh –password ${hashicorp_vault_secret.my_password.value}”
}
}
resource “json” “vcsa_template” {
content = file(“path/to/vcsa.json”)
}
resource “null_resource” “create_vcsa” {
provisioner “local-exec” {
command = “sudo ./install.sh –password ${hashicorp_vault_secret.my_password.value}”
}
}
“`
In the above example, we have defined two resources: one for updating the VCSA JSON template with the stored password, and another for creating the VCSA instance using the updated template. The `null_resource` resource is used to run a local command, in this case, the `install.sh` script provided by VMware.
Conclusion
———-
In this blog post, we have seen how Terraform can be used to update the VCSA JSON template with values provided in a variable file, and how HashiCorp Vault can be used to securely store sensitive information such as passwords. This approach allows us to easily deliver infrastructure across different infrastructures: public cloud, private cloud, Kubernetes. With Terraform, you can write your configuration files, test them (with plan) and then apply them to the infrastructure to get your resources deployed.