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Terraform in Depth
book

Terraform in Depth

by Robert Hafner
March 2025
Intermediate to advanced
504 pages
15h 38m
English
Manning Publications

Overview

An in-depth guide to everything Terraform, complete with newly established best practices and experienced insights into Infrastructure as Code.

Terraform and its open-source fork OpenTofu’s “Infrastructure as Code (IaC)” approach has redefined the way you manage your infrastructure. Its premise is simple-yet-awesome: provision, update, scale, and replicate your infrastructure with the same ease as your application code. In Terraform in Depth, you’ll discover absolutely everything you need to automate and manage your infrastructure with just a few lines of code.

Inside Terraform in Depth, you’ll learn how to:

  • Understand and write basic Terraform code
  • Avoid vendor lock-in with the open source OpenTofu
  • Switch between OpenTofu and Terraform as needed
  • Construct continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines for Terraform
  • Organize Terraform projects and modules for team-based, production use
  • Develop and test robust Terraform modules
  • Create custom Terraform providers

Terraform in Depth is fully up to date with the latest versions, standards, and approaches of Terraform and OpenTofu. Complete and comprehensive, its one-stop approach covers everything from Terraform and OpenTofu’s absolute basics all the way to advanced production uses. Every technique is illustrated with the kind of real-world examples infrastructure engineers encounter every day.

About the Technology
Terraform and its open-source fork OpenTofu practically eliminate manual infrastructure configuration. With the Terraform infrastructure management tool, even complex operations that used to require kludgy scripts and time-sucking tinkering can be created, managed, and shared as an organized codebase. Master Terraform, and you’ll be able to update a fleet of machines with just a few lines of code.

About the Book
Terraform in Depth teaches Terraform techniques and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices that you can use to deploy and manage applications in the cloud or your on-prem data center. Each chapter includes interesting hands-on examples, such as creating a flexible Terraform module and debugging Terraform plans. You’ll quickly learn to define your infrastructure with Terraform. Then, you’ll dive into advanced applications, including CI/CD pipelines, creating tools for documentation and security, and Terraform code management.

What's Inside
  • Understand and write basic Terraform code
  • Avoid vendor lock-in with OpenTofu
  • Construct CI/CD pipelines
  • Develop and test Terraform modules


About the Reader
For sysadmins, software developers, and cloud engineers famil- iar with the CLI.

About the Author
Robert Hafner has led engineering efforts at numerous startups, including Malwarebytes, Vicarious AI, and Rad AI. He is currently a Distinguished Engineer at a Fortune 100 Telecom.

Quotes
Accessible and comprehensive. My go-to reference for managing infrastructure with Terarform and OpenTofu.
- Malcolm Matalka, Terrateam

Offers a fair and balanced view of the ecosystem covering many tools, approaches and vendors.
- Marcin Wyszynski, Spacelift

Includes valuable topics I’ve not seen covered before. I highly recommend it.
- Chris Kolosiwsky, Appcues

Brilliant and definitely in- depth. Gives you real leg up in the game!
- Michael Bright, Mjbright Consulting

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781633438002Supplemental ContentPublisher SupportOtherPublisher WebsiteSupplemental ContentPurchase Link