Provisioner failure behavior in Terraform - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Provisioner Failure Behavior in Terraform

📖 Scenario: You are managing cloud infrastructure using Terraform. Sometimes, when Terraform runs a provisioner script on a resource, the script might fail. You want to control what happens when this failure occurs.Terraform allows you to specify how it should behave if a provisioner fails, using the on_failure setting.

🎯 Goal: Build a Terraform configuration that creates a simple resource with a local-exec provisioner. Configure the provisioner to handle failure by choosing the on_failure behavior.You will create the resource, add the provisioner, and set the failure behavior to continue.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Terraform resource of type null_resource named example

Add a local-exec provisioner that runs the command exit 1 (which will fail)

Add the on_failure argument to the provisioner and set it to continue

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

In real cloud infrastructure, provisioners run scripts or commands on resources after creation. Sometimes these scripts fail, and you need to decide if Terraform should stop or continue.

💼 Career

Understanding provisioner failure behavior helps cloud engineers manage infrastructure deployments reliably and avoid unexpected interruptions.

1

Create a null_resource named example

Create a Terraform resource block for null_resource named example.

Terraform

# Your code here

Need a hint?

The resource block starts with resource "null_resource" "example" { and ends with }.

2

Add a local-exec provisioner with a failing command

Inside the null_resource named example, add a provisioner block of type local-exec that runs the command exit 1.

Terraform

resource "null_resource" "example" {
  # Add local-exec provisioner here
}

Need a hint?

The provisioner block should have command = "exit 1" inside.

3

Add on_failure behavior to continue on failure

Inside the local-exec provisioner block, add the argument on_failure and set it to continue.

Terraform

resource "null_resource" "example" {
  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "exit 1"
    # Add on_failure = "continue" here
  }
}

Need a hint?

The on_failure argument controls what happens if the provisioner fails.

4

Complete the Terraform configuration

Ensure the Terraform configuration has the null_resource named example with a local-exec provisioner running exit 1 and on_failure = "continue" set.

Terraform

resource "null_resource" "example" {
  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "exit 1"
    on_failure = "continue"
  }
}
# Configuration complete

Need a hint?

Review the full resource block to confirm all parts are present.