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Terraform and Kubernetes - Managing K8s Infrastructure with IaC

Complete guide to using Terraform with Kubernetes — provision clusters on AWS EKS, Azure AKS, and GCP GKE, then manage K8s resources with the Kubernetes.

LLuca Berton1 min read

Introduction

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Terraform and Kubernetes are a powerful combination. Terraform provisions the cluster infrastructure (EKS, AKS, GKE), while the Kubernetes provider manages the resources running inside it (deployments, services, configmaps). This guide covers both levels of the stack.

For Kubernetes-specific recipes and patterns, visit Kubernetes Recipes.

Level 1: Provisioning Kubernetes Clusters

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AWS EKS

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module "eks" {
  source  = "terraform-aws-modules/eks/aws"
  version = "~> 19.0"
 
  cluster_name    = "production"
  cluster_version = "1.28"
 
  vpc_id     = module.vpc.vpc_id
  subnet_ids = module.vpc.private_subnets
 
  eks_managed_node_groups = {
    general = {
      instance_types = ["t3.medium"]
      min_size       = 2
      max_size       = 10
      desired_size   = 3
    }
  }
}

Azure AKS

# 
resource "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster" "main" {
  name                = "production-aks"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.main.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.main.name
  dns_prefix          = "production"
 
  default_node_pool {
    name       = "default"
    node_count = 3
    vm_size    = "Standard_D2_v2"
  }
 
  identity {
    type = "SystemAssigned"
  }
}

GCP GKE

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resource "google_container_cluster" "primary" {
  name     = "production-gke"
  location = "us-central1"
 
  initial_node_count = 3
 
  node_config {
    machine_type = "e2-medium"
    oauth_scopes = [
      "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform"
    ]
  }
}

Level 2: Managing Kubernetes Resources

# 
provider "kubernetes" {
  host                   = module.eks.cluster_endpoint
  cluster_ca_certificate = base64decode(module.eks.cluster_certificate_authority_data)
  token                  = data.aws_eks_cluster_auth.cluster.token
}
 
resource "kubernetes_namespace" "app" {
  metadata {
    name = "production"
    labels = {
      environment = "production"
    }
  }
}
 
resource "kubernetes_deployment" "app" {
  metadata {
    name      = "web-app"
    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.app.metadata[0].name
  }
 
  spec {
    replicas = 3
    selector {
      match_labels = { app = "web-app" }
    }
    template {
      metadata {
        labels = { app = "web-app" }
      }
      spec {
        container {
          name  = "web"
          image = "nginx:latest"
          port {
            container_port = 80
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The Full Stack

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Terraform manages everything:
 
Cloud Provider (AWS/Azure/GCP)
  └── VPC / Network
      └── Kubernetes Cluster (EKS/AKS/GKE)
          ├── Namespaces
          ├── Deployments
          ├── Services
          ├── ConfigMaps
          ├── Secrets
          └── Ingress

When to Use Terraform vs Helm vs kubectl

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ToolBest For
TerraformCluster provisioning, core K8s resources, GitOps-managed infra
HelmApplication packaging, templating, release management
kubectlDebugging, ad-hoc commands, quick changes

Learning Resources

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Conclusion

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Terraform gives you a single language to manage both the Kubernetes cluster and the workloads running on it. Combined with Kubernetes Recipes for K8s-specific patterns and our Terraform course for IaC fundamentals, you have everything you need to build production Kubernetes infrastructure.

#Terraform#Infrastructure as Code#DevOps#Cloud Computing#Automation

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