For simple test scripts or for development, a local state file will work. However, if we are working in a team, deploying our infrastructure from a CI/CD tool or developing a Terraform using multiple layers, we need to store the state file in a remote backend and lock the file to avoid mistakes or damage the existing infrastructure.
We can use remote backends, such as Azure Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Amazon S3, and HashiCorp Terraform Cloud & Terraform Enterprise, to keep our files safe and share between multiple users.
In this story, we will take a look at a step by step procedure to use Microsoft Azure Storage to create a Remote Backend for Terraform using Azure CLI, PowerShell, and Terraform.
1. Creating a Service Principal and a Client Secret
Using a Service Principal, also known as SPN, is a best practice for DevOps or CI/CD environments and is one of the most popular ways to set up a remote backend and later move to CI/CD, such as Azure DevOps.
First, we need to authenticate to Azure. To authenticate using Azure CLI, we type:
az loginThe process will launch the browser and after the authentication is complete we are ready to go.
