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Terraform for VxWorks Aerospace and Defense Backends

Provision VxWorks cloud backends with Terraform: AWS GovCloud telemetry, secure firmware delivery, FedRAMP boundaries, and Wind River Studio integration.

LLuca Berton1 min read

VxWorks runs critical avionics, defense, and industrial controllers — it's behind every Mars rover and many satellites. The device firmware is built and certified offline; the cloud side (telemetry, fleet health, simulation runners, secure firmware staging) is what Terraform provisions, almost always inside AWS GovCloud or Azure Government.

GovCloud Telemetry Pattern

# 
provider "aws" {
  region = "us-gov-west-1"
}
 
resource "aws_kinesis_stream" "vxworks" {
  name             = "vxworks-telemetry"
  shard_count      = 8
  encryption_type  = "KMS"
  kms_key_id       = aws_kms_key.gov.id
  retention_period = 168 # 7 days
}
 
resource "aws_kms_key" "gov" {
  description             = "GovCloud telemetry"
  enable_key_rotation     = true
  deletion_window_in_days = 30
}

Firmware Staging Bucket

# 
resource "aws_s3_bucket" "fw" {
  bucket = "vxworks-firmware-${var.env}"
}
 
resource "aws_s3_bucket_object_lock_configuration" "fw" {
  bucket = aws_s3_bucket.fw.id
  rule {
    default_retention {
      mode = "COMPLIANCE"
      years = 7
    }
  }
}
 
resource "aws_s3_bucket_logging" "fw" {
  bucket        = aws_s3_bucket.fw.id
  target_bucket = aws_s3_bucket.audit.id
  target_prefix = "fw/"
}

Wind River Studio CI Runner (FedRAMP Moderate)

# 
resource "aws_instance" "studio_runner" {
  ami           = data.aws_ami.al2023_gov.id
  instance_type = "c7i.4xlarge"
  subnet_id     = var.private_gov_subnet_id
 
  iam_instance_profile = aws_iam_instance_profile.runner.name
 
  metadata_options {
    http_tokens = "required"
  }
 
  tags = {
    Name        = "vxworks-studio-runner"
    Compliance  = "FedRAMP-Moderate"
  }
}

Best Practices

#
  • GovCloud or Azure Government — VxWorks programs almost always have ITAR/FedRAMP scope.
  • Object Lock COMPLIANCE mode, multi-year retention on firmware.
  • Air-gap signing: Terraform stages firmware artifacts; signing happens offline on an HSM.
  • Tag with Compliance= and Program= for evidence collection.
#
#Terraform#VxWorks#Wind River#Aerospace#GovCloud

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