Terraform Project 2 - VPC & EC2 Infrastructure

Overview

This project provisions a custom AWS network infrastructure using Terraform. It includes a VPC, public subnet, internet gateway, route table, and an EC2 instance deployed within the network.

The project demonstrates core Infrastructure as Code (IaC) concepts along with basic AWS networking.

Resources Created

• AWS VPC
• Public Subnet
• Internet Gateway
• Route Table & Association
• Security Group
• EC2 Instance

Architecture

This project provisions a custom AWS network setup:

• A VPC (10.0.0.0/16)
• A public subnet (10.0.1.0/24)
• An Internet Gateway for outbound internet access
• A route table directing traffic (0.0.0.0/0 → IGW)
• A security group allowing SSH access
• An EC2 instance deployed within the public subnet
• EC2 instance uses dynamically retrieved latest Amazon Linux AMI

Skills Practiced

• Terraform workflow (init, plan, apply, destroy)
• Variables and outputs for reusable configurations
• Resource creation and dependency management
• AWS networking fundamentals (VPC, subnet, route tables, internet gateway)
• Using data sources for dynamic resource configuration (latest AMI lookup)
• Debugging infrastructure issues (VPC and security group mismatch)

How to run

• terraform init
• terraform validate
• terraform plan
• terraform apply

To destroy resources:

• terraform destroy

Challenges & Fixes

Issue: Security group and subnet in different VPCs

• EC2 failed to launch due to mismatch between subnet and security group

Fix:

• Added vpc_id to security group: vpc_id = aws_vpc.main_vpc.id

Lesson Learned:

• Security groups are tied to a specific VPC
• All resources must belong to the same network

Improvements

• Add key pair for SSH access
• Refactor code into reusable modules
• Add private subnet and NAT Gateway
• Implement remote backend (S3 + DynamoDB)