How to Create a Randomized S3 Bucket Using Terraform

How to Create a Randomized S3 Bucket Using Terraform

In this tutorial, we'll walk you through how to create an AWS S3 bucket using Terraform with a randomized name. We will use the random_integer provider to generate a random number, which will be appended to the S3 bucket name to ensure it's unique.

Terraform Configuration Breakdown

Here is the complete Terraform configuration for our task:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
        source = "hashicorp/aws"
        version = "~> 5.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

resource "random_integer" "random_number" {
  min = 1
  max = 50000
}

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "bucket_creation" {
  bucket = "bucket-${random_integer.random_number.result}"
}

output "s3_bucket_name" {
  value = aws_s3_bucket.bucket_creation.bucket
}

1. Provider Block:

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

• The provider block tells Terraform which cloud provider to use—in this case, AWS.

• We're specifying the region us-east-1 to create our resources in the North Virginia region. You can change the region to any of the available AWS regions if needed.

2. Random Integer Resource:

resource "random_integer" "random_number" {
  min = 1
  max = 50000
}

• The random_integer resource is used to generate a random integer within the specified range. In this case, the range is between 1 and 50,000.

• The result of this random integer will be used as part of the S3 bucket name to ensure the bucket name is unique.

3. AWS S3 Bucket Resource:

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "bucket_creation" {
  bucket = "bucket-${random_integer.random_number.result}"
}

• This is where we create the AWS S3 bucket. The name of the bucket is dynamically generated using the random_integer.random_number.result output.

• The S3 bucket name must be globally unique. Therefore, the random integer is appended to the prefix bucket- to generate a unique name for each execution.

For example, the bucket name could look like bucket-12345 or bucket-9876, depending on the random number generated.

4. Output:

output "s3_bucket_name" {
  value = aws_s3_bucket.bucket_creation.bucket
}

• The output block is used to display the value of the S3 bucket name after the resources are created. Once Terraform applies the configuration, it will output the name of the newly created bucket.

Steps to Execute the Terraform Configuration

To implement the above configuration and create the S3 bucket, follow these steps:

1. Initialize Terraform:

Navigate to the directory where your Terraform configuration file (e.g., main.tf) is located, and run the following command to initialize your Terraform working directory. This will download the necessary AWS provider and set up your environment.

terraform init

2. Plan the Changes:

Next, run the following command to see what changes Terraform will make to your AWS account. This will show you a preview of the resources that will be created or modified:

terraform plan

3. Apply the Configuration:

Once you are satisfied with the plan, apply the configuration to create the S3 bucket:

terraform apply

Terraform will prompt you for confirmation before proceeding. Type yes to confirm.

4. View the Output:

Once the resources have been created, Terraform will output the name of the created S3 bucket:

Outputs:

s3_bucket_name = "bucket-6411"

After running terraform apply to create the S3 bucket, you can destroy it by running the following command:

terraform destroy

This will automatically confirm the destruction and remove the created resources, including the S3 bucket.