Getting Started with Terraform - Second Edition

Providing data from anywhere with external_data

As of Terraform 0.8, there is also an external_data resource. It allows us to call any other program and use the data returned by it, as long as it implements a specific protocol. The main requirement for this program is that it returns a valid JSON as a result of execution. Create the following tiny Ruby script in the root template directory:

require 'json' 
data = { 
  owner: "Packt" 
} 
puts data.to_json 

You need to have Ruby installed for this to work.

Now configure external data resource as follows:

data "external" "example" { 
  program = ["ruby", "${path.module}/custom_data_source.rb"] 
} 

Finally, use it inside the module to extend its name attribute:

 module "mighty_trousers" { source = "./modules/application" ...