Terraform Cloud & Enterprise Capabilities

Question 1

Whats HCP Terraform?

Answer 1

HCP (Hashicorp Cloud Platform) Terraform manages Terraform runs in a consistent and reliable environment with various features like access control, private registry for sharing modules, policy controls and others.

Its broken down by workspaces

Question 2

What is the use of the organizations in HCP?

Answer 2

They are a shared spare for one or more teams to collab on workspaces.

HCP Terraform manages plans/billing at the org level.

Question 3

Whats the HCP Terraform Workspace?

Answer 3

The workspace acts as a folder with relatable files for project to run

The terraform config files aren’t directly uploaded to a workspace, instead the workspaces are connected to a Github repository where it can fetch the code from

Question 4

How does variable values differ from local terraform to HCP Terraform?

Answer 4

Locally, you store in .tfvars file, as CLI Arguments, or shell environment. In HCP, you store in the workspace

Question 5

How are the state files stored in HCP Terraform?

Answer 5

They are stored also in the workspace

Question 6

What three types of workflows exist in HCP

Answer 6

1. Version Control
2. CLI-Driven (working directory (local) is linked with HCP workspace). Plan/apply commands can also be run locally.
3. API-Driven

Question 7

How do you setup the CLI HCP Cloud integration?

Answer 7

1. You have to add a code block within your .tf file to setup cloud integration.

terraform {
cloud {
organization = “org_name”

    workspaces {
        name = "workspace_name"
    }
} }

2. Once block has been added, do the command terraform login in your CLI
3. terraform init
4. terrform plan

Question 8

What is Sentinel?

Answer 8

Sentinel is a policy-as-code framework integrated with the Hashicorp Enterprise products.

It enables fine-grained, logic-based policy decisions, and can be extended to use information from external sources.

Note: Sentinel policies are paid features.

Ex: You can create a policy in sentinel to block EC2 creation without tags

Question 9

What are air-gapped environments?

Answer 9

An air gap is a network security measure employed to ensure that a secure computer network is physically isolated from unsecured networks, such as the public internet.

Ex: military/govt’t, financial systems (stock exchange), industrial control systems (SCADA)

Question 10

Can you install Terraform Enterprise on an air-gapped network?

Answer 10

Terraform Enterprise installs using either an online or air gapped method and as the name infers, one requires internet connectivity, the other doesnt