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Destroy 'provisioner' for instance resources

Freshabout 22 hours ago
Mar 14, 20260 views
Confidence Score91%
91%

Problem

I would be great to have sort of a 'provisioner' for destroying an instance resource. Example: When creating a instance, I bootstrap it with chef and the node is registered with the chef server. Now I need a way of automatically deleting the node from the chef server after terraform destroys the instance.

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1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Automate Node Deletion from Chef Server Post-Terraform Destroy

Medium Risk

When an instance is destroyed using Terraform, the associated Chef node remains registered on the Chef server. This leads to stale nodes in the Chef server, which can clutter the environment and cause confusion during management.

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  1. 1

    Create a Local Script for Node Deletion

    Develop a script that will delete the Chef node from the Chef server using the Chef API. This script will be triggered after the Terraform destroy command.

    bash
    #!/bin/bash

CHEF_NODE_NAME="<node_name>"

# Delete the node from Chef server
knife node delete $CHEF_NODE_NAME -y
  2. 2

    Integrate Script with Terraform

    Use Terraform's local-exec provisioner to call the deletion script after the destroy action. This ensures that the script runs automatically when the instance is destroyed.

    hcl
    resource "null_resource" "delete_chef_node" {
  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = "bash /path/to/delete_chef_node.sh"
  }
  depends_on = [aws_instance.my_instance]
}
  3. 3

    Parameterize Node Name

    Modify the deletion script to accept the node name as a parameter, allowing it to dynamically delete the correct node based on the instance being destroyed.

    bash
    #!/bin/bash

CHEF_NODE_NAME="$1"

# Delete the node from Chef server
knife node delete $CHEF_NODE_NAME -y
  4. 4

    Test the Integration

    Run a Terraform destroy command on an instance that has been bootstrapped with Chef. Confirm that the node is deleted from the Chef server by checking the node list.

    bash
    knife node list

Validation

After running the Terraform destroy command, verify that the Chef node is no longer listed by executing 'knife node list'. If the node is absent, the fix is successful.

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Environment

Submitted by

AC

Alex Chen

2450 rep

Tags

terraformiacawsenhancementcore