Terraform Resource: Connection Error while executing apply? - amazon-web-services

Question

I am trying to login to ec2 instance that terraform will create with the following code:
resource "aws_instance" "sess1" {
ami = "ami-c58c1dd3"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
key_name = "logon"
connection {
host= self.public_ip
user = "ec2-user"
private_key = file("/logon.pem")
}
provisioner "remote-exec" {
inline = [
"sudo yum install nginx -y",
"sudo service nginx start"
]
}
}
But this gives me an error:
PS C:\Users\Amritvir Singh\Documents\GitHub\AWS-Scribble\Terraform> terraform apply
provider.aws.region
The region where AWS operations will take place. Examples
are us-east-1, us-west-2, etc.
Enter a value: us-east-1
Error: Invalid function argument
on Session1.tf line 13, in resource "aws_instance" "sess1":
13: private_key = file("/logon.pem")
Invalid value for "path" parameter: no file exists at logon.pem; this function
works only with files that are distributed as part of the configuration source
code, so if this file will be created by a resource in this configuration you
must instead obtain this result from an attribute of that resource.
How do I save pass the key from resource to provisioner at runtime without logging into the console?

Answer 1

Have you tried using the full path? Especially beneficial if you are using modules.
I.E:
private_key = file("${path.module}/logon.pem")
Or I think even this will work
private_key = file("./logon.pem")
I believe your existing code is looking for the file at the root of your filesystem.

Answer 2

connection should be in the provisioner block:
resource "aws_instance" "sess1" {
ami = "ami-c58c1dd3"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
key_name = "logon"
provisioner "remote-exec" {
connection {
host= self.public_ip
user = "ec2-user"
private_key = file("/logon.pem")
}
inline = [
"sudo yum install nginx -y",
"sudo service nginx start"
]
}
}
The above assumes that everything else is correct, e.g. the key file exist or security groups allow for ssh connection.