Help Center/ Cloud Container Engine/ Best Practices/ Terraform/ Terraform Overview
Updated on 2026-08-17 GMT+08:00
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Terraform Overview

Terraform is an infrastructure as code (IaC) tool developed by HashiCorp. It provides both the Community and Enterprise editions. Terraform uses HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) to declaratively describe the desired state of infrastructure and provides unified resource lifecycle management for multi-cloud, network, on-premises, and SaaS environments.

Basic Concepts

The core workflow of Terraform consists of three steps.

Step

Description

Write

You can write human-readable configuration files to define the desired resource configurations for the infrastructure. Terraform uses declarative configuration files, so developers only need to describe the final state of required resources.

Plan

Terraform compares the target state described in the configuration files with the current state of the infrastructure and generates an execution plan that describes how to transition from the current state to the desired state. The execution plan is presented as an infrastructure manifest.

Apply

After the execution plan is confirmed, Terraform executes the recommended actions in the correct sequence, with resource dependencies considered, and creates resources in the dependency sequence.

The following table describes the main components of Terraform.

Component

Description

Configuration files

The core carrier for developers to define infrastructure resources. It is used to declare the required provider, resources, and their configuration parameters.

Modules

A reusable infrastructure code unit that encapsulates complex architectures into modular templates to avoid repeated coding

State files

Files that record the current state of the infrastructure, including the relationships between components, configurations, and resources

Providers

Plugins for Terraform to interact with the APIs of external services and platforms, allowing Terraform to manage resources in the environment

Terraform CLI

Terraform's command-line tool, which is used to initialize the working directories, generate execution plans, apply changes, and interact with core components

Advantages of Terraform

  • Multi-cloud management

    Terraform is suitable for multi-cloud solutions. O&M personnel can use Terraform to centrally manage resources on multiple clouds, including Huawei Cloud.

  • Automatic infrastructure management

    Terraform can create templates for configuration files, enabling automatic and rapid resource creation without the need for interaction.

  • High reusability and modularization

    Common architecture configurations can be compiled into reusable modules for quick and standardized replication.

  • Lower development costs

    You can create development and deployment environments on demand to reduce costs.

Using Terraform to Manage CCE Resources

Terraform can use the following two types of resources to manage CCE clusters and related resources: CPU resource type.

  • Resources: newly created resources
  • Data source: used to query existing resources and obtain their attributes

Resource List

Name

Purpose

huaweicloud_cce_access_policy

Grants RBAC permissions to a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_addon

Deploys add-ons in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_chart

Manages the charts of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster

Creates a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_certificate_revoke

Deletes the granted RBAC permissions.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_log_config

Manages the log configuration of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_pod_identity_association

Creates a pod identity association.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_upgrade

Upgrades a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_image_cache

Creates a container image cache.

huaweicloud_cce_namespace

Creates a namespace in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_node

Creates a node in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_node_attach

Adds an ECS to a CCE cluster for management.

huaweicloud_cce_node_pool

Creates a node pool in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_node_pool_nodes_add

Adds a node in a CCE cluster to a specified node pool.

huaweicloud_cce_node_pool_scale

Scales a node pool in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_node_sync

Synchronizes cloud server information to a CCE node.

huaweicloud_cce_nodes_certificate_rotatecredentials

Rotates a user's cluster certificate.

huaweicloud_cce_nodes_remove

Deletes a CCE node.

huaweicloud_cce_partition

Creates a CCE node partition.

huaweicloud_cce_pvc

Creates a PVC in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_release

Deploys an application template in a CCE cluster.

Data Source List

Name

Purpose

huaweicloud_cce_access_policies

Obtains the existing RBAC permissions of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_addon_template

Obtains the add-on configuration template of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_addons

Obtains the add-on deployment information in a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_chart_values

Obtains the values of a chart.

huaweicloud_cce_charts

Obtains the chart list of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster

Obtains information about a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_certificate

Obtains the authentication credential of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_configuration_details

Obtains the configuration details of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_configurations

Obtains the existing configuration of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_pod_identity_assume_agency

Obtains pod identity association information of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_cluster_upgrade_info

Obtains the upgrade information of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_clusters

Obtains the list of existing CCE clusters.

huaweicloud_cce_flavor_specifications

Obtains available CCE cluster specifications.

huaweicloud_cce_image_caches

Obtains the image cache list.

huaweicloud_cce_node

Obtains the node information of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_node_pool

Obtains the node pool information of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_node_pools

Obtains the node pool list of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_nodes

Obtains the node list of a CCE cluster.

huaweicloud_cce_releases

Obtains the charts that have been deployed in a CCE cluster.
Parent Topic: Terraform