How to define connection resource in terraform with key inline - ibm-cloud

Question

I am using the connection resource in terraform template
connection {
user = "ubuntu"
private_key = "${file("test.pem")}"
agent = "false"
timeout = "30s"
}
Instead of reading the key from the file I know we can paste the key contents directly but what about the line breaks in the key string. How to paste the contents inline?

Answer 1

Although keeping private key information directly inside configuration is not a best-practice, it is possible to use the "heredoc" multi-line string style to include multi-line strings:
connection {
user = "ubuntu"
private_key = <<-EOK
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
....
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
EOK
agent = "false"
timeout = "30s"
}
The EOK string here is an arbitrary marker chosen because it does not exist in the key, and is intended to stand for "End of key". You can choose any label you like as long as the introducer and the end marker match.
If the machine that is being connected to is created within the same Terraform configuration as the one where it is being provisioned (which is usually the case) an alternative is to generate dynamically a key at creation time, thus avoiding the need to place a literal key in the configuration. The tls_private_key resource can be used to do this:
resource "tls_private_key" "example" {
algorithm = "RSA"
}
resource "some_compute_resource" "example" {
# question didn't specify which provider is in use, so this is a generalized example
public_key = "${tls_private_key.example.public_key_openssh}"
connection {
user = "ubuntu"
private_key = "${tls_private_key.example.private_key_pem}"
agent = false
timeout = "30s"
}
}
In this case, the generated private key is saved as part of the Terraform state rather than as part of the configuration. This means the configuration does not contain any sensitive information and can thus be more freely shared, but it is important to ensure that the state file is stored securely to prevent unauthorized access to the created instance.