Installation
Objective
The goal of this section is to ensure Terraform is installed properly.
Overview
Terraform is packaged as a single binary making it simple to install. Each operating system and architecture has a direct binary download link provided on the Hashicorp site. Terraform Releases
Lab
Terraform is straightforward to install. Most of the documentation below can be found in more detail at Install Terraform.
MacOS
MacOS: Brew
Brew is a package manager that takes care of installing applications along with their dependencies. It detects architectures and installs the correct binary. This method allows for a simple install as well as upgrade. Hashicorp maintains a tap for all of their products: hashicorp/tap. To install Terraform we just need to add the tap and call the install command.
Execute
brew tap hashicorp/tap
brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform
The brew folder is likely already in your path if brew is correctly installed
but if not the binary is likely at /opt/homebrew/bin/terraform.
MacOS: Manual Installation
Execute
TFVERSION=1.4.2
TFARCH=arm64
TFOS=darwin
curl -O "https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/${TFVERSION}/terraform_${TFVERSION}_${TFOS}_${TFARCH}.zip"
unzip terraform_${TFVERSION}_${TFOS}_${TFARCH}.zip
Be sure to update the TFARCH variable to amd64 if you are on an Intel Mac.
Windows
Hashicorp does not currently support any package managers on Windows. Manual installation is the only officially supported method.
Execute
set TFVERSION=1.4.2
set TFARCH=amd64
set TFOS=windows
curl -O "https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/%TFVERSION%/terraform_%TFVERSION%_%TFOS%_%TFARCH%.zip"
tar -xf terraform_%TFVERSION%_%TFOS%_%TFARCH%.zip
Linux
Linux: Package Manager
Every package manager on Linux will have a separate process. As this varies so much the best way to find out how to do it for your distro is using the official documentation: Install Terraform.
Linux: Manual Installtion
Execute
TFVERSION=1.4.2
TFARCH=amd64
TFOS=linux
curl -O "https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/${TFVERSION}/terraform_${TFVERSION}_${TFOS}_${TFARCH}.zip"
unzip terraform_${TFVERSION}_${TFOS}_${TFARCH}.zip
Setting the PATH variable
The PATH variable is used to tell the system where to look for executables
called by the terminal or a script. If you are unable to call terraform at
this point it is likely not in your PATH. A message similar to “command not
found” is usually a clear indication that the binary is not in your path. To fix
this issue either move terraform to a location in your PATH variable, append the
location of the binary to your PATH variable or use the full path when calling
terraform.
Verification
To verify Terraform is installed successfully and available in your PATH call:
Execute
terraform version
The version shown should match the version downloaded above.
If an error is received during this step please revisit the PATH section above
Do not proceed from this section if the verification step fails. The remainder of this guide depends on Terraform being available.
Review
In this section we installed Terraform and ensured it was available for use system-wide.