GitLab Product Walk-Throughs - All, 29 Jan 2021

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From YouTube: Product Walk Through - Terraform MR Integration

Description

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/Product/-/issues/2035

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Hey my name is kenny johnston. I'm a director of product here at gitlab, um I'm here for my uh well. Maybe it's becoming weekly, uh walk through recording. um Let me go ahead and share my screen. uh Today. I'm gonna be doing a walk through for uh terraform, so I wanted to use the terraform. Mr widget, um I decided I'd just start with. You know when I googled uh our docs for terraform.

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I came across this page said infrastructure's code with terraform and getlab cool. So give me some quick start instructions, um so I'm just gonna go ahead and get started. Let me go to my examples, project that I usually use for these types of things. I think uh victor our awesome product manager in the configure section has some temp or some examples with terraform um already, but I'm gonna create my own okay. New project gonna make it blank.

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Oh actually, let me see were there any templates for related terraform?

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No okay, um then I'm going to create a new.

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One, let's make it public. Let's go read me: okay,.

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uh Here, I am, I need to add some cicd.

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We have a new file.

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I don't wanna it's so terrible. Oh there's a template, oh that it's more complicated than I wanted. I'm not gonna. Do that one! Maybe that's what gets included when I do this.

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Okay, so here's my gitlab ci file, I also need to add some terraform and I have done a little bit of searching for just like some basic terraform examples using aws. So I'm gonna do that. This has some like uh basic content for your main.tf files.

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So first thing I'm gonna do is go back over here and add a new file.

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It's my main dot.

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Tf, okay, uh so the quick start says: hey, add this make sure to use latest instead of stable and may include brain changes, including the latest skill lab terraform image. It's great using to manage to form state and creating four pipeline stages, use terraform.

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Commands more about setting up get that managed to reform state. Let's read that okay.

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I have maintainer access required to get started with gitlab managed to perform state. There are two options: use gitlab, ci, okay, when he's down. If you want to start with local environment, you can also use gitlab ci to find your terraform plan and terraform apply, commands next configure the back end.

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I think that this is what the ci yml file did in the quick start.

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But what I don't haven't done is initialize anything in.

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um Let's see this reference, progress checked real quick.

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This doesn't use the quick start specifically.

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It says default, so I think that that.

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I'm not using gloves terraform back end, but I do want to see what happens when this pipeline ran.

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So when I made this commit, it ran these things. I did init.

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Yeah, okay, so I think the terraform state got initialized actually by that quick start, which is cool. Let's see if we can confirm.

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That no no state here.

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One failed in this first one.

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So there was no.

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Match there, but there was on this one.

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Let's just try this, maybe it's already set up, so let me see, if that's the case, I'm just going to add some content to my main tf and see as part of a merge request.

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I don't have any.

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Variables added for this, so this should.

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Okay, so I think that the quick start should give me a pipeline for this merge request, and then there should be some terraform plan output, even though I think that the content I added is not.

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Valid because I don't have any.

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Let's go back to this.

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I got lost in this setting up.

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Okay, that makes sense that it couldn't validate.

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I think I saw that in the intro I would want to start with the provider and region. So let's do.

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I should have a new pipeline that will perform that same.

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I'm still a little bit confused about the terraform state and when that gets instantiated. If I need to do that or not.

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What I haven't done is given provided any environment.

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Variables for my aws access, key or secret.

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Let's see if that tells me where to do.

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This is saying: hey. If I want to set this up, I could use quickstart.

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Still a little bit confused about how I provide okay, so in this case validate seemed to work. I at least had a valid syntax for my terraform plan, my terraform definition, but what I wanted to.

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Okay, so this was the plan. That's saying: terraform has been successfully initialized, but I didn't have a provider, so it failed.

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So I think, I'm figuring out that what I need to do.

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Is add those environment variables, so in this other window I'm going to look at my aws account.

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Okay, login as a root user.

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My aws account y'all can't see this. I don't want to show you my.

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No, I'm not finding. I, where you set up my like roles in your iam account. Why can't I buy.

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Yeah, I know some reason I went to the marketplace. How did I get there? That's.

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Oh okay, oh come on. Why did you do.

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uh Okay, I think I found it man that took a while. Okay.

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I need a new. This is telling me exactly what I needed from aws for this.

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Example: okay, I need users, I need a new user. This username is terraform sample user.

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It's kind of a programmatic user, and then I gotta give it.

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Permissions I had specific policies.

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And the policies I need to add.

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Are you see two.

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Let's just do that for now. I don't need any tags: let's create the user.

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Okay, I've got an access key and a secret key, and I'm just gonna. So nobody sees this. I'm gonna add these to my.

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Well, that was the example.

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Add these to my ci cd settings so for those following along, I would go to variables and but I'm not going to add them where you can see them, I'm going to add them over here. So just one second, and they told me the variable names that I needed to and that.

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Okay, lab auto completed that for me and then the next key is this.

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I want to mask it and protect.

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And then I'm gonna add my aws secret access key things get that for autocompleting.

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I'm gonna mask that one too. Okay, all right now bring this back here, so you can see two variables. Those are the two of them. Well, let's just see if I run this pipeline again.

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uh Whenever I don't have the run pipeline option here, I guess I'll make a change.

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The next step here after deploying a single server was just to do that.

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Yeah I mean I won't do that. I just wanted that in single file.

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So now, let's see if this pipeline doesn't fail now because it actually has credentials to perform this plan in the pipeline variables. I will say that this kind of starting point didn't really.

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Me what I'm trying to get to is this. This, like I've, got a terraform report. This is the example I think most of this is covered in the quick start. What I was missing was the hey. Terraform is going to need some variables for your.

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It says what it does, but it doesn't say like hey if you're using this quickstart here's the things that you would you're also going to need to do like here's, the exact steps for doing it, and maybe what word results that might help in these docs.

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This provider is about using terraform to manage gitlab. That's not what I'm looking for.

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Let's check back in on my.

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um While we're waiting.

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No credential, no valve providers and.

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Maybe this intro is old: okay,.

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I thought all I needed to do.

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I wonder what this means.

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No valid credential sources for aws provider found, let's just google, that.

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That's obviously some terraforming thing, I'm not completely understanding.

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So I create the role I install terraform. I export these variables.

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That should be the same as what I'm doing in gitlab.

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I am really not sure.

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I need to do this.

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Yeah, I think maybe that is what's going on.

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I think that um article I was reading is outdated. Let's try this.

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Why did I do the web id.

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All right, maybe that will work. I have to assume that this uh provider, documentation example usage that we're using a up-to-date version of terraform says that all these methods are supported for providing variables, including environment variables,.

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Excuse me, I just sneezed hardcoded credentials are not suggested. You could do them here, environment variables, just as long as you do.

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These, which I did.

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I could use shirt, credential files not doing.

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Let's see if that was the.

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Problem validated now on to.

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uh One thing I want to show is that I don't have any ec2 instances. This is my aws console no instances I shouldn't have any after this. It's just a merge request, but when I merge the merge request to my master branch, I do expect that uh it didn't create the resources for me: okay, yeah, you're initialized, but yeah now.

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Okay see some of these other examples.

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Doesn't seem to be any like injection of the ci variables.

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Let's get some of these pipelines.

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On this example, one no has an invalid.

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Seems to have similar errors in that.

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I wonder if I have to do something like that: that's not explained anywhere.

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Yeah, I'm still not sure how you were supposed to provide variables.

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So back to the quick start.

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I really want to use this quick just start sure.

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Error: configuring terraform no valid credential sources for terraform aws provider found okay. Here's my terraforming internet doesn't see where I provide.

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ah Man, that was why, okay, I don't want them only on protected branches. Maybe this is why we'll see they're not able to run because as a.

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This, mr, is not on a protected branch, and I need that value even to run the plan. I assume, um let's see if that.

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um And that stock somewhere, I haven't even taken those there. It is.

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Okay, so one thing was in the quick start, not sure of the other setup steps like adding uh what is terraform call them provider.

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Authentication.

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ugh um And then.

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When I think you know about the variables we.

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That's all assuming that this works, we'll see, we'll see we'll.

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Well, it did work, let's see.

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Pipeline was successful. One terraform report was generated from my pipeline awesome before it was generated in your pipeline report resources. It's going to change one to add zero to change zero, to delete. Let's check out that log.

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Okay, wait! A second log didn't send me to the place where I'd want. I would think. Okay, so that'll send me to the job, but it'd be cool to send me to the right exact link. Okay, so mr widget sends you to the job, but not to the exact plan output.

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I think it's kind of a point, um so yeah just to be clear when I jumped here it took me to just jobs, but not jobs would be great if we could figure out where it would need where this content came from, because that's where I once dwell.

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That is where I want it to be.

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These are the things that are created. Here's things I'm going to use to create none. I where's where it's showing what I'm actually going to create block images.

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Yeah so sorry this is going to give me a new aws instance. I'm going to know all the stuff after I apply, but it's going to tell me the ami.

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Or is that just an example? I thought that that output would have shown me.

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Okay, um but the thing I next want to do is merge this and see what happens after I merge. Let's try it. Okay, merge.

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Okay, I have a merch pipeline here, it's running it's going to in it validate, build and then run a deploy job. Let's check out that that's cool, so um overall, the quick start did what I expected just a bit confusing to get started.

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I think this uh this part the ci variables part, especially because it was defaulted to protected. It would be important that we highlight to folks that they need to not do that.

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um I think, especially because the quick start is kind of obfuscating, the writing of your ci yaml. That would tell you, oh this is for a march pipeline. So that's a good. I think that's good usability, improvement.

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What did I do? I was looking for the pipe blind after merge watch that and then hopefully, oh, I should just check to make sure no instances available right now, okay and then, after that pipeline finishes, we should have some.

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Instances I think I read that this deploy job is going to be have a manual trigger, but let's make sure that um this one.

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And then, after that, I think we should be good.

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I love my screen. Sorry, hopefully, y'all can still see that.

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While we're at it, let's look at the terraform state, see if that actually gets populated now, okay, so some updated six days ago. Oh sorry, that's not the right one! That's not mine, and this one is mine.

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Yeah, okay, so I don't have a managed terraform state, but I thought that was part of the quick start.

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Maybe it only happens after I do a first.

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Deploy okay, build finished. I got to do the manual deploy job all right. I triggered it. Let's watch.

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Apply complete: uh okay: let's go right check what this is in git lab.

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So this merged our posts, merge pipeline that did this. Deploy, let's see, do I have an instance.

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Maybe I'm not in the right region, yeah, I'm not an organ. Where did I say that I was going to get created.

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I should have shown you this before, but here it is recently created it's up and running.

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Maybe I can find out when it was created, so you can believe me that it was just recently created.

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Updated less than I'm gonna go okay. There you go so it was just created. Sorry, I was showing you that screen before that it was blank, but it was the wrong region. Apologies for that! um Okay! um Well, I'm gonna go back to my example and see what happens if I remove.

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Resource remove the c2.

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Okay, hopefully this succeeds and I'm going to hit margin pop valencies, but this is great um uh definitely a little bit of struggle, just figuring out how to use that quick start. But once did the widget showed up great and it felt like the quick start made some smart decisions for me that were made it easy for me to get started with terraform.

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So overall great, I will make sure to post this for the team thanks, everybody.