How to set up Terraform and create your first EC2 instance

Terraform lets you define infrastructure in code and apply it with a single command. This walkthrough gets you from zero to a running EC2 instance. You’ll need an AWS account and the AWS CLI installed and configured before starting.

Install Terraform

Pick your OS. All four methods install the same binary from HashiCorp.

macOS

Install via Homebrew:

brew tap hashicorp/tap
brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform

If you don’t have Homebrew, install it first from brew.sh.

Windows

Install via Chocolatey:

choco install terraform

Or with winget:

winget install Hashicorp.Terraform

For manual installation, download the zip from hashicorp.com/downloads, extract it, and add the folder to your PATH.

Ubuntu / Debian

Add the HashiCorp APT repository and install:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y gnupg software-properties-common

wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | \
  gpg --dearmor | \
  sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg > /dev/null

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] \
  https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install terraform

RHEL / Amazon Linux

Add the HashiCorp YUM repository and install:

sudo yum install -y yum-utils

sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo \
  https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo

sudo yum -y install terraform

Verify the installation on any OS:

terraform -version

You should see Terraform v1.x.x. If you get “command not found,” the binary isn’t in your PATH.

Create your project

Create a new directory and move into it:

mkdir my-first-ec2 && cd my-first-ec2

Create a file called main.tf. This is where Terraform reads your infrastructure definition.

terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 5.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "ap-south-1"
}

data "aws_ami" "ubuntu" {
  most_recent = true
  owners      = ["099720109477"] # Canonical

  filter {
    name   = "name"
    values = ["ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd-gp3/ubuntu-noble-24.04-amd64-server-*"]
  }
}

resource "aws_instance" "first" {
  ami           = data.aws_ami.ubuntu.id
  instance_type = "t3.micro"

  tags = {
    Name = "my-first-ec2"
  }
}

A few things worth noting:

• The data block finds the latest Ubuntu 24.04 AMI automatically, so you don’t need to hardcode AMI IDs that go stale.
• t3.micro is free-tier eligible, good enough for testing.
• Change region to wherever your AWS CLI is configured. Check with aws configure get region.

Initialize and apply

Initialize the project. This downloads the AWS provider plugin:

terraform init

Preview what Terraform will create:

terraform plan

Plan: 1 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

Apply the configuration:

terraform apply

Type yes when prompted. Terraform creates the instance and prints its details. The whole process takes about 30 seconds.

Verify the instance in the AWS console or with the CLI:

aws ec2 describe-instances \
  --filters "Name=tag:Name,Values=my-first-ec2" \
  --query "Reservations[].Instances[].{ID:InstanceId,State:State.Name,IP:PublicIpAddress}" \
  --output table

Clean up

Destroy the instance if you’re just testing:

terraform destroy

Type yes to confirm. Terraform terminates the instance and removes all the resources it created.

What’s next

This is the simplest possible Terraform setup: one file, one resource, no remote state. For a real project, you’d add:

• A remote backend (S3 + DynamoDB) so your state file isn’t sitting on your laptop
• Variables for region, instance type, and tags
• A security group to control inbound/outbound traffic
• An SSH key pair if you need to connect to the instance

I’ll cover those in future posts.