Integrating Abbey with Terraform Cloud

In this Quickstart, you'll learn how to set up and use Abbey using Terraform Cloud.

Abbey helps you manage the workflows for access requests and approvals, making it easier for people to get access to Resources.

We allow engineers to integrate these workflows directly into the Infrastructure provisioning process. Since you are already using an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool like Terraform, Abbey extends your IaC deployment through a Grant Kit.

A resource can be a production database or a cloud IAM role. In this Quickstart we will use the Abbey Demo Site as a resource example.

--> Go to Abbey Demo Site

Whoops, looks like you don't have access. Let's fix this and get you access. ⚒️

Before you start

1. Create an Abbey Account

2. Log into your Terraform Cloud account

3. Log into your GitHub account

Step 1: Clone this Repo

Clone abbeylabs/abbey-starter-kit-terraform-cloud into your local development environment by following the instructions in Get a Starter Kit.

Step 2: Configure GitHub

Follow the instructions in Connect a Repo to connect Abbey to your GitHub account.

Enable VCS Integration on Terraform Cloud

Go to Terraform Cloud's Projects & workspaces to create a new Workspace and connect it with the quickstart GitHub repository.

1. Go to Terraform Cloud's Projects & workspaces

2. Click New > Workspace

3. In Choose Type, choose Version control workflow

4. In Connect to VCS, choose GitHub

5. In Choose a repository, choose the quickstart repo you created in Step 1

6. In Configure settings > Advanced opitons,

   • Under Apply Method, choose Auto Apply

   • Under VCS Triggers, choose Always trigger runs

   • Under Pull Requests, toggle on Automatic speculative plans

7. Click Create workspace

8. Configure abbey_token Terraform variable

   • Find your API Token from the Settings > API Tokens page from your side navigation in the Abbey App.

Step 3: Configure Your Grant Kit

Configure Output

Grant Kits rely on your GitHub account and repository name to output access changes, which we'll set through Terraform local variables. Update the locals block in main.tf with your account_name and repo_name

main.tf

 locals {
  account_name = "" #CHANGEME
  repo_name = "" #CHANGEME
  ...
}

Configure Reviewers

Workflow defines who should approve an access request.

Let's update the reviewers block by adding yourself as the reviewer by switching [e-mail] with the email address you use to sign into Abbey.

main.tf

 resource "abbey_grant_kit" "..." {
   ...
   workflow = {
     steps = [
       {
         reviewers = {
-          one_of = ["[e-mail]"] # CHANGEME
+          one_of = ["[e-mail]"]

Update Terraform Cloud Backend Configuration

Update Terraform Cloud Configuration inside terraform block with your Terraform organization and workspace names.

backend.tf

 terraform {
   cloud {
-    organization = "replace-me-with-organization" # CHANGEME
+    organization = "my-terraform-org" # Use your own organization name
     workspaces {
-      name = "replace-me-with-workspace" # CHANGEME
+      name = "my-terraform-workspace" # Use your own workspace name here
     }
   }

Step 4: Deploy Your Starter Kit

To deploy your Starter Kit, push to your main branch:

git push origin main

The deploy registers your resources with Abbey and effectively says "Hey Abbey, from this point forward, please manage permissions for these resources for me."

Step 5: Make a Request

Visit the Abbey web application, click on Resources, and click Request next to the Demo resource. There are detailed instructions in Request Access doc.

Since all changes are backed by Git, you will see a PR get created in your repo with comments that outline the requested change in permissions.

Step 6: Approve the Request

To make things simple, we have configured the grant kit so that you are your own Approver. Click the Approvals tab and click Approve. See Approve or Deny Access Requests for detailed instructions.

You'll see that the PR in GitHub was merged within a few minutes.

Step 7: Access the Demo Site

Now let's go back to the Abbey Demo Site.

🎉 Congrats! You should now have access. 🎉

Revoke Access

Once your 5 minutes is up, your access is automatically revoked. In your repo's Pull requests history, you can find a closed PR with the title "Revoking access to Abbey_demo from ...", and you will no longer be able to access the Abbey Demo Site.

Next Steps

To learn more about what Resources you can configure, try one of our Step-by-Step Tutorials.