title	description	keywords	ms.topic	ms.date	ms.custom
Configure an Azure VM cluster using Terraform	Learn how to use Terraform modules to create a Windows virtual machine cluster in Azure.	azure devops terraform vm virtual machine cluster module registry	how-to	08/07/2021	devx-track-terraform

Configure an Azure VM cluster using Terraform

[!INCLUDE Terraform abstract]

This article shows example Terraform code for creating a VM cluster on Azure.

In this article, you learn how to:

[!div class="checklist"]

• Configure an Azure VM cluster

1. Configure your environment

[!INCLUDE open-source-devops-prereqs-azure-subscription.md]

[!INCLUDE configure-terraform.md]

2. Implement the code

1. Create a directory in which to test the sample Terraform code and make it the current directory.

2. Create a file named main.tf and insert the following code:

   module "windowsservers" {
     source              = "Azure/compute/azurerm"
     resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
     is_windows_image    = true
     vm_hostname         = "mywinvm"                         // Line can be removed if only one VM module per resource group
     admin_password      = "ComplxP@ssw0rd!"                 // See note following code about storing passwords in config files
     vm_os_simple        = "WindowsServer"
     public_ip_dns       = ["winsimplevmips"]                // Change to a unique name per data center region
     vnet_subnet_id      = module.network.vnet_subnets[0]
       
     depends_on = [azurerm_resource_group.rg]
   }
   
   module "network" {
     source              = "Azure/network/azurerm"
     resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
     subnet_prefixes     = ["10.0.1.0/24"]
     subnet_names        = ["subnet1"]
   
     depends_on = [azurerm_resource_group.rg]
   }
   
   output "windows_vm_public_name" {
     value = module.windowsservers.public_ip_dns_name
   }
   
   output "vm_public_ip" {
     value = module.windowsservers.public_ip_address
   }
   
   output "vm_private_ips" {
     value = module.windowsservers.network_interface_private_ip
   }

   Key points:

   • In the preceding code example, the variable admin_password is assigned a literal value for the sake of simplicity. There are many ways in which to store sensitive data such as passwords. The decision as to how you want to protect your data comes down to individual choices involving your particular environment and comfort level exposing this data. As an example of the risk, storing a file like this in source control could potentially result in the password being seen by others. For more information on this subject, HashiCorp has documented various ways to declare input variables and techniques for managing sensitive data (such as passwords).

3. Initialize Terraform

[!INCLUDE terraform-init.md]

4. Create a Terraform execution plan

[!INCLUDE terraform-plan.md]

5. Apply a Terraform execution plan

[!INCLUDE terraform-apply-plan.md]

Troubleshoot Terraform on Azure

Troubleshoot common problems when using Terraform on Azure

Next steps

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Learn more about using Terraform in Azure