Lab: Fetch, Version and Upgrade Terraform Providers

Terraform relies on plugins called “providers” to interact with remote systems and expand functionality.
Terraform providers can be versioned inside a Terraform configuration block. To prevent external
changes from causing unintentional changes, it’s highly recommended that providers specify versions
which they are tied to. Depending on the level of acceptable risk and management effort to be tracking
version updates, that can either be hard locked to a particular version, or use looser mechanisms such
as less than next major rev, or using tilde to track through bug fix versions.

• Task 1: Check Terraform and Provider version

• Task 2: Require specific versions of Terraform providers
• Task 3: Upgrade provider versions

Task 1: Check Terraform version

Run the following command to check the Terraform version:

terraform -version

You should see:

Terraform v1.0.10

Task 2: Require specific versions of Terraform

Update the terraform.tf to define a minimum version of the Terraform AWS provider and Terraform
Random provider to be used.

Note: Terraform has multi-provider support from a single set of configuration files. This is ex-
tremely beneficial and we can control the version parameters for each individual provider.

terraform.tf

terraform {
required_version = ">= 1.0.0"
required_providers {
aws = {
source = "hashicorp/aws"
version = "~> 3.0"
}

1
 random = {
source = "hashicorp/random"
version = "3.1.0"
}
}
}

Note: You can always find the latest version of a provider on its provider registry page at
https://registry.terraform.io.

You need to let Terraform know to use the provider through a required_providers block. Now
that you have told Terraform to use this new provider you will have to run the init command. This
will cause Terraform to notice the change and download the correct version if it was not already
downloaded.

terraform init

By default Terraform will always pull the latest provider if no version is set. However setting a version
provides a way to ensure your Terraform code remains working in the event a newer version introduces
a change that would not work with your existing code. To have more strict controls over the version
you may want to require a specific version ( e.g. version = "= 3.0.0" ) or use the ~>operator to
only allow the right-most version number to increment.

To check the terraform version and provider version installed via terraform init run the
terraform version command.

You can modify the version line of the AWS provider to be as specific or general as desired.

Update the version line within your terraform.tf file to try these different versioning tech-
niques.

version = "~> 3.0"

version = ">= 3.0.0, < 3.1.0"
version = ">= 3.0.0, <= 3.1.0"
version = "~> 2.0"
version = "~> 3.0"

Notice that for certain combinations of the version constraint you may encounter an error stating the
version of the provider installed does not match the configured version.

terraform init

Initializing the backend...

2
 Initializing provider plugins...
- Reusing previous version of hashicorp/aws from the dependency lock file
- Reusing previous version of hashicorp/random from the dependency lock
file
- Using previously-installed hashicorp/random v3.1.0

Error: Failed to query available provider packages

Could not retrieve the list of available versions for provider hashicorp/
aws: locked provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws 3.62.0 does
not match configured version constraint >= 3.0.0, < 3.1.0; must use
terraform init -upgrade to allow selection of new versions

In these situations you have to intentionally install a version that matches the constraint by issuing a
terraform init -upgrade command.

Task 3: How to upgrade provider versions

Terraform configurations must declare which providers they require so that Terraform can install and
use them. Once installed, Terraform will record the provider versions in a dependency lock file to
ensure that others using this configuration will utilize the same Terraform and provider versions. This
file by default is saved as a .terraform.lock.hcl file, and its contents look as follows:

# This file is maintained automatically by "terraform init".

# Manual edits may be lost in future updates.

provider "registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws" {
version = "3.61.0"
constraints = "~> 3.0"
hashes = [
"h1:fpZ14qQnn+uEOO2ZOlBFHgty48Ol8IOwd+ewxZ4z3zc=",
"zh:0483ca802ddb0ae4f73144b4357ba72242c6e2641aeb460b1aa9a6f6965464b0",
"zh:274712214ebeb0c1269cbc468e5705bb5741dc45b05c05e9793ca97f22a1baa1",
"zh:3c6bd97a2ca809469ae38f6893348386c476cb3065b120b785353c1507401adf",
"zh:53dd41a9aed9860adbbeeb71a23e4f8195c656fd15a02c90fa2d302a5f577d8c",
"zh:65c639c547b97bc880fd83e65511c0f4bbfc91b63cada3b8c0d5776444221700",
"zh:a2769e19137ff480c1dd3e4f248e832df90fb6930a22c66264d9793895161714",
"zh:a5897a99332cc0071e46a71359b86a8e53ab09c1453e94cd7cf45a0b577ff590",
"zh:bdc2353642d16d8e2437a9015cd4216a1772be9736645cc17d1a197480e2b5b7",
"zh:cbeace1deae938f6c0aca3734e6088f3633ca09611aff701c15cb6d42f2b918a",
"zh:d33ca19012aabd98cc03fdeccd0bd5ce56e28f61a1dfbb2eea88e89487de7fb3",
"zh:d548b29a864b0687e85e8a993f208e25e3ecc40fcc5b671e1985754b32fdd658",
]
}

provider "registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/random" {
version = "3.0.0"

3
 constraints = "3.0.0"
hashes = [
"h1:yhHJpb4IfQQfuio7qjUXuUFTU/s+ensuEpm23A+VWz0=",
"zh:0fcb00ff8b87dcac1b0ee10831e47e0203a6c46aafd76cb140ba2bab81f02c6b",
"zh:123c984c0e04bad910c421028d18aa2ca4af25a153264aef747521f4e7c36a17",
"zh:287443bc6fd7fa9a4341dec235589293cbcc6e467a042ae225fd5d161e4e68dc",
"zh:2c1be5596dd3cca4859466885eaedf0345c8e7628503872610629e275d71b0d2",
"zh:684a2ef6f415287944a3d966c4c8cee82c20e393e096e2f7cdcb4b2528407f6b",
"zh:7625ccbc6ff17c2d5360ff2af7f9261c3f213765642dcd84e84ae02a3768fd51",
"zh:9a60811ab9e6a5bfa6352fbb943bb530acb6198282a49373283a8fa3aa2b43fc",
"zh:c73e0eaeea6c65b1cf5098b101d51a2789b054201ce7986a6d206a9e2dacaefd",
"zh:e8f9ed41ac83dbe407de9f0206ef1148204a0d51ba240318af801ffb3ee5f578",
"zh:fbdd0684e62563d3ac33425b0ac9439d543a3942465f4b26582bcfabcb149515",
]
}

By default, if a .terraform.lock.hcl file exists within a Terraform working directory, the provider
versions specified in this file will be used. This lock file helps to ensure that runs accross teams will
be consistent. As new versions of Terraform providers are released it is often beneficial to upgrade
provider versions to take advantage of these updates. This can be accomplisehd by updating our
configuration definiton to the desired provider version and running an upgrade.
In this case we are going to update the Terraform random provider from 3.0.0 to 3.1.0.

Note: If the provider is already at version 3.1.0 then youo can downgrade it to 3.0.0 following
similar steps.

terraform {
required_version = ">= 1.0.0"
required_providers {
aws = {
source = "hashicorp/aws"
version = "~> 3.0"
}
random = {
source = "hashicorp/random"
version = "3.1.0"
}
}
}

terraform init -upgrade

Note: You should never directly modify the lock file.

Once complete you can open the .terraform.lock.hcl to see the provider updates, as well as run

4
a terraform version to see that the new provider version has been installed and ready for use.

# This file is maintained automatically by "terraform init".

# Manual edits may be lost in future updates.

provider "registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws" {
version = "3.61.0"
constraints = "~> 3.0"
hashes = [
"h1:fpZ14qQnn+uEOO2ZOlBFHgty48Ol8IOwd+ewxZ4z3zc=",
"zh:0483ca802ddb0ae4f73144b4357ba72242c6e2641aeb460b1aa9a6f6965464b0",
"zh:274712214ebeb0c1269cbc468e5705bb5741dc45b05c05e9793ca97f22a1baa1",
"zh:3c6bd97a2ca809469ae38f6893348386c476cb3065b120b785353c1507401adf",
"zh:53dd41a9aed9860adbbeeb71a23e4f8195c656fd15a02c90fa2d302a5f577d8c",
"zh:65c639c547b97bc880fd83e65511c0f4bbfc91b63cada3b8c0d5776444221700",
"zh:a2769e19137ff480c1dd3e4f248e832df90fb6930a22c66264d9793895161714",
"zh:a5897a99332cc0071e46a71359b86a8e53ab09c1453e94cd7cf45a0b577ff590",
"zh:bdc2353642d16d8e2437a9015cd4216a1772be9736645cc17d1a197480e2b5b7",
"zh:cbeace1deae938f6c0aca3734e6088f3633ca09611aff701c15cb6d42f2b918a",
"zh:d33ca19012aabd98cc03fdeccd0bd5ce56e28f61a1dfbb2eea88e89487de7fb3",
"zh:d548b29a864b0687e85e8a993f208e25e3ecc40fcc5b671e1985754b32fdd658",
]
}

provider "registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/random" {
version = "3.1.0"
constraints = "3.1.0"
hashes = [
"h1:rKYu5ZUbXwrLG1w81k7H3nce/Ys6yAxXhWcbtk36HjY=",
"zh:2bbb3339f0643b5daa07480ef4397bd23a79963cc364cdfbb4e86354cb7725bc",
"zh:3cd456047805bf639fbf2c761b1848880ea703a054f76db51852008b11008626",
"zh:4f251b0eda5bb5e3dc26ea4400dba200018213654b69b4a5f96abee815b4f5ff",
"zh:7011332745ea061e517fe1319bd6c75054a314155cb2c1199a5b01fe1889a7e2",
"zh:738ed82858317ccc246691c8b85995bc125ac3b4143043219bd0437adc56c992",
"zh:7dbe52fac7bb21227acd7529b487511c91f4107db9cc4414f50d04ffc3cab427",
"zh:a3a9251fb15f93e4cfc1789800fc2d7414bbc18944ad4c5c98f466e6477c42bc",
"zh:a543ec1a3a8c20635cf374110bd2f87c07374cf2c50617eee2c669b3ceeeaa9f",
"zh:d9ab41d556a48bd7059f0810cf020500635bfc696c9fc3adab5ea8915c1d886b",
"zh:d9e13427a7d011dbd654e591b0337e6074eef8c3b9bb11b2e39eaaf257044fd7",
"zh:f7605bd1437752114baf601bdf6931debe6dc6bfe3006eb7e9bb9080931dca8a",
]

terraform version

Terraform v1.0.10

+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/aws v3.61.0

+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/random v3.1.0

5
Reference

Terraform Versioning Terraform Dependency Lock File