WEBVTT

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In this lecture, let's take
a look at providers in more detail.

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We saw in the previous lecture that

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after we write
a Terraform configuration file,

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the first thing to do is
to initialize the directory

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with the Terraform init command.

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When we run Terraform init

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within a directory containing
the configuration files,

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Terraform downloads
and installs plugins

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for the providers
used within the configuration.

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These can be plugins for cloud
providers such as AWS, GCP,

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Azure, or something as simple as
the local provider that we used

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to create a local
file type resource.

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Terraform uses
a plugin-based architecture

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to work with hundreds of such
infrastructure platforms.

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Terraform providers are
distributed by HashiCorp

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and are publicly available

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in the Terraform Registry at
the URL registry.terraform.io.

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There are three
tiers of providers.

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The first one is the
official provider.

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These are owned and
maintained by HashiCorp,

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and include the major cloud
providers such as AWS, GCP, and Azure.

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The local provider that we have used
so far is also an official provider.

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The second type of provider
is a partner provider.

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A partner provider
is owned and maintained

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by a third-party
technology company

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that has gone through a partner
provider process with HashiCorp.

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Some of the examples are
the BIG-IP provider

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from F5 networks, Heroku,
DigitalOcean, et cetera.

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Finally, we have the community
providers that are published

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and maintained by individual
contributors of the HashiCorp community.

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A Terraform init
command when run,

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shows the version of the
plugin that has been installed.

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In this case, we can see that
the plugin name hashicorp/local

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with the version 2.0.0 has been
installed in the directory.

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The Terraform init
is a safe command,

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and it can be run as many times
as needed without impacting

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the actual infrastructure
that is deployed.

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The plugins are downloaded
into a hidden directory

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called .terraform/plugins
in the working directory

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containing the configuration files.

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In our example,
the working directory

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is /root/terraform-local-file.

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The plugin name that you
see here, hashicorp/local,

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is also known as
the source address.

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This is an identifier that is
used by Terraform to locate

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and download the plugin
from the registry.

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Let's take a closer look
at the format of the name.

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The first part of the name,
which in this case is hashicorp,

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is the organizational namespace.

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This is followed by the type,

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which is the name of
the provider such as local.

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Other examples of providers are AWS,
AzureRM, Google, Random, et cetera.

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The plugin name can also
optionally have a hostname in front.

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The hostname is the name of the
registry where the plugin is located.

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If omitted, it defaults
to registry.terraform.io,

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which is HashiCorp's
public registry.

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Given the fact that the
local provider is stored

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in the public Terraform Registry
within the HashiCorp namespace,

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the source address for
it can be represented as

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registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/local,

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or simply by hashicorp/local
by omitting the hostname.

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By default, Terraform installs
the latest version of the provider.

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Provider plugins, especially
the official ones,

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are constantly updated
with newer versions.

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This is done to bring in new
functionality or to add in bug fixes,

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and these can introduce
breaking changes to your code.

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We can lock down our
configuration files

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to make use of a specific
provider version as well.

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We will see how to do
that later in this course.