The Importance of Manual Testing in Terraform

When it comes to managing infrastructure as code (IaC), it is critical that your Terraform code be well tested. While automated testing is an important part of any DevOps pipeline, manual testing is also important. In this post, we will look at how to perform manual tests on your Terraform code, why this step is necessary for delivering robust and reliable infrastructure, and why these tests should be performed in sandbox environments separate from production or staging.

Why Manual Testing Matters

However, manual testing might be time-consuming. It's time-consuming, and you have to go through the setups step by step. The value of conducting this testing in a sandbox environment cannot be emphasized. Testing in isolated settings ensures that experimental or untested modifications do not have an impact on production or staging environments.

Challenges

Manual testing is time-consuming and might feel monotonous, especially when it includes ensuring that all resources are produced and perform as intended. In bigger configurations, tiny details are often overlooked or mistakes made. Furthermore, because the changes are occurring in isolated contexts, the chance of human mistake or missed steps could increase. This is why keeping a high level of discipline during the testing process is critical.

To avoid impacting production or staging environments, it’s recommended that you:

Test in a Sandbox Environment: Always run your Terraform code in a sandbox or isolated environment. This environment resembles production but lacks any crucial live systems. Sandbox tests guarantee that errors or misconfigurations do not affect the actual infrastructure.
Ensure Proper Cleanup: Since manual testing can create resources that might be left behind, ensure you run the necessary terraform destroy commands after testing to avoid unnecessary costs and resource sprawl.

Steps for Manual Testing of Terraform Code

Choosing the Right Configuration: Choose an existing Terraform setup to run in a sandbox environment. This might be a project you're presently working on or a stable piece of code that needs validation.
Verifying Resource Creation: Check if the resources defined in your Terraform code are being created properly. You can do this by:
- Running⁣terraform apply to create the infrastructure.
- Manually inspecting the infrastructure using your cloud provider's console or command-line interface to ensure that resources exist and are properly configured.
Environment Behavior: Ensure that the infrastructure performs as intended in various scenarios. Check to see if the configurations operate across several regions or if resource scaling is as intended.
Regression Testing: Check that any recent modifications to your Terraform code do not compromise current functionality. This assures that new updates do not cause regressions in your codebase.

Cleaning Up After Tests

After performing manual tests, it’s crucial to clean up the resources to avoid unnecessary costs or conflicts in your sandbox environment. Terraform provides several ways to do this:

Run terraform destroy to remove all the resources managed by the configuration.
Ensure that any manually created resources outside of Terraform are also cleaned up if necessary.

By maintaining proper cleanup, you can ensure that your cloud resources remain cost-effective and free of any redundant infrastructure.

Conclusion

Manual testing is an extremely useful tool for Terraform users. It ensures that your infrastructure is properly configured and functions consistently across environments. While automated tests should be your first choice for continuous validation, manual testing provides an important safety net during the development cycle. Testing in a sandbox allows you to make mistakes and validate setups without affecting the production or staging environments.