How to Install Terraform on macOS with Homebrew

In this article, we will guide you through the steps to install Terraform on your macOS machine using Homebrew, a popular package manager that simplifies software installation on Mac. Terraform is an open-source tool that allows you to define and provision your infrastructure using a high-level configuration language.

Prerequisites

Before we can proceed with installing Terraform, you need to make sure that you have Homebrew installed on your macOS machine. If it’s not already installed, you can do so by running the following command in your terminal:

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/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" 

After you’ve installed Homebrew, verify the installation by typing:

brew doctor 

You should see a message saying “Your system is ready to brew” if everything went well.

Step 1: Update Homebrew

Before we install Terraform, it’s a good practice to update Homebrew and the formulae to make sure you’re getting the latest versions of everything.

Run the following command to update Homebrew:

brew update 

Step 2: Install Terraform

Once Homebrew is updated, we can proceed to install Terraform.

To install Terraform on your macOS machine using Homebrew, run the following command in your terminal:

brew install terraform 

This command will download and install the latest version of Terraform.

Step 3: Verify Installation

After the installation is complete, you can verify that Terraform is installed correctly by checking its version. Run the following command in your terminal:

terraform version 

This command should display the version of Terraform that was installed on your machine.

Step 4: Initialize Terraform

After verifying your installation, you can now initialize Terraform. Initialization sets up backend configuration, modules, providers, and more.

Create a new directory for your Terraform project:

mkdir terraform_project 
cd terraform_project 

In your new directory, create a new file named main.tf:

touch main.tf 

For this simple project, you can paste the following example code into main.tf:

This will create a resource with a randomly generated name.

Next, initialize your Terraform project:

terraform init 

If everything went well, you should see a message saying “Terraform has been successfully initialized!”

Step 5: Run Your First Terraform Command

Now you are ready to run your first Terraform command:

terraform apply 

This command will create the infrastructure specified in main.tf. Since the main.tf file creates a random name, Terraform will prompt you to confirm that you want to create the resources.

That’s it! You have successfully installed Terraform on macOS using Homebrew. With this tool installed, you’re ready to start defining and creating your own infrastructure as code. Make sure to read up on best practices for using Terraform to get the most out of this powerful tool.