Terraform Artifactory VMware Deployment

This repository provides Terraform configurations to deploy Artifactory on a VMware vSphere environment.

Requirements

Before deploying, ensure you have:

• Terraform - Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool that provides a consistent CLI workflow to manage hundreds of cloud services. Terraform codifies cloud APIs into declarative configuration files.
• Access to a VMware vSphere environment with the proper authorization to create VMs.
• DNS entry for artifactory.gym.lan pointing to the deployed VM's IP address (e.g., 192.168.252.8).

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IBM TechZone Access to vSphere

If you are an IBMer or Business Parter, you can request access to vSphere through IBM TechZone.

VMware on IBM Cloud Environments

Select `Request vCenter access (OCP Gym)

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Pre flight checklist

🛠️ Preparing a RHEL 9 Template for Terraform on vSphere

To use this Terraform code to deploy virtual machines on vSphere, you first need a VM template. Here's how to create one using a RHEL 9 image.

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1. 🎯 Define the Goal

You want to deploy VMs using Terraform, but Terraform needs a pre-existing VM template to clone from.

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2. 🧱 Use the Red Hat Image Builder

Red Hat provides a tool to generate OVA files for RHEL 9. This is a convenient way to create a VM image that can be imported into vSphere.

🔗 You can find the image builder on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

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3. 📦 Deploy the OVA to vSphere

Once you have the OVA file:

1. Open vSphere Client.
2. Go to Deploy OVF Template.
3. Upload the RHEL 9 OVA.
4. Follow the wizard to deploy it as a VM or template.

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Install Terraform

💡 Tip: If you're connecting to vSphere through a WireGuard VPN, you might experience timeouts or connectivity issues.
In such cases, consider running your Terraform commands from a bastion host that resides within the same network or environment as vSphere.
This can help avoid VPN-related latency or firewall restrictions that interfere with the connection.

To install Terraform from a RHEL 8 bastion host, follow these steps:

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✅ Step-by-Step Installation Guide

1. Install Required Packages

Open a terminal and run:

sudo dnf install -y yum-utils git bind-utils

2. Add the HashiCorp Repository

Create a new repo file:

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/hashicorp.repo <<EOF
[hashicorp]
name=HashiCorp Stable - RHEL 8
baseurl=https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/8/\$basearch/stable
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg
EOF

3. Install Terraform

Now install Terraform:

sudo dnf install -y terraform

4. Verify Installation

Check the installed version:

terraform -version

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Configure Networking

💡 Important: Currently this Terraform module assumes that the network is 192.168.252.0/24. This is hard-coded into the module, sorry.

Required Static IPs

There are 4 static IP addresses that are needed.

Hostname	IP	FQDN
artifactory	192.168.252.8	haproxy.gym.lan

The example table above assumes the base_domain is set to gym.lan

🛠️ How to Set Static IPs in pfSense

1. Log in to pfSense via the web UI (usually at https://192.168.252.1).
2. Navigate to:
   Services → DNS Forwarder.
3. Scroll down to Host Overrides.
4. For each device:
   • Click Add.
   • Set the IP address (from the table above).
   • Set the Hostname (e.g., artifactory).
   • Set the Domain to gym.lan (or appropriate base domain) to form the FQDN.
   • Click Save.
5. Click Apply Changes at the top of the page.

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🔁 Verifying DNS Resolution

To ensure the FQDNs resolve correctly:

• Test resolution using:

nslookup artifactory.gym.lan

🧭 Enable DNS Forwarder Static Mapping Registration in pfSense

To ensure that your static DHCP mappings (like artifactory.gym.lan, etc.) are resolvable via DNS, you need to enable a specific setting in pfSense:

✅ Steps

1. Log in to the pfSense Web UI.
2. Navigate to:
   Services → DNS Forwarder.
3. Scroll down to the General DNS Forwarder Options section.
4. Check the box for: Register DHCP static mappings in DNS forwarder
5. Click Save and then Apply Changes.

💡 This setting controls whether hostnames assigned to static DHCP clients are automatically added to the DNS forwarder or resolver so they can be resolved locally.

Clone the repository

Clone this repository to your local workstation. This will allow you to configure and run terraform.

1. Install Required Packages

Open a terminal and run:

sudo dnf install -y git bind-utils

2. Clone the repo

Now clone this repo:

git clone <repo>

Define Terraform variables

There is a file called terraform.tfvars.example. Copy this file to terraform.tfvars and set variables here according to your needs.

Deploy

We are now ready to deploy our infrastructure. First we ask terraform to plan the execution with:

terraform plan

now we can deploy our resources with:

terraform apply

Accessing Artifactory

• Default Username: admin
• Auto-generated Password: To retrieve the password, run:

  terraform output -raw artifactory_password && echo

• Base URL: https://artifactory.gym.lan:8443

Troubleshooting

If you see the "Artifactory is starting up" page, it indicates the web server is running but there's an issue with the Artifactory application itself. Check the following:

• Ensure the PostgreSQL database is running and accessible.
• Verify that disk space is not at 100% utilization.

Important Notes

• The default daily/weekly backups are disabled during the first startup.

Destroy

To destroy all resources, run the following command.

terraform destroy -auto-approve