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Part 1: Account Setup and Terraform Install

To run this workshop you will need access to an Equinix Metal Account or create a new one following step 1 below.

Note: You are responsible for the cost of resources created in your Equinix Metal account while running this workshop.

Steps

1. Create an Equinix Metal account

If you have never used Equinix Metal before, don't worry, you just need 2 minutes to sign-up and create your first organization. If you have any doubt you can watch our Getting Started with Equinix Metal video.

2. Create an API key

API keys in Metal can be tied to your user or to a single project. For this workshop we will need a user-level API key.

Note: Project API keys do not have access to the entirety of the API; some endpoints can only be used by personal API keys.

To create a new user API key, access your user Profile in the Equinix Metal console, click on the User Icon, and click My Profile.

Equinix Console profile section screenshot

  • Select the API Keys tab.
  • Click on + Add New Key.
  • Create a new key with Read/Write permissions.

Equinix Console API keys section screenshot

3. Install Terraform

All you need to start working with Terraform is to download a binary file. However, it is also possible to use a package manager for your given operating system.

We will not describe how to install Terraform, instead refer to the Terraform documentation.

4. (Optional) Install and Configure Metal CLI

Once you are familiar with the console you may feel more comfortable managing your Equinix Metal resources with the command-line interface tool Metal-cli.

As with Terraform, you only need to download a binary to start enjoying Metal-cli, but you may want to check out the different installation options.

Once installed you need to configure your credentials. To do this, execute metal init and provide the requested information.

Expected output:

Bash
$ metal init

Equinix Metal API Tokens can be obtained through the portal at https://console.equinix.com/.
See https://metal.equinix.com/developers/docs/accounts/users/ for more details.

Token (hidden): 
Organization ID [27703148-e7bf-4a2f-95cf-46e7dddb4bb8]: 
Project ID []: 

Writing /Users/Oscar.Cobles/.config/equinix/metal.yaml

3. Verify

Bash
$ terraform version

Terraform v1.4.2
on darwin_amd64
Bash
$ metal organization get

+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+----------------------+
|                  ID                  |                NAME                 |       CREATED        |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+----------------------+
| 27703148-e7bf-4a2f-95cf-46e7dddb4bb8 | Equinix Terraform                   | 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+----------------------+

Discussion

Before proceeding to the next part let's take a few minutes to discuss what we did. Here are some questions to start the discussion.

  • Can we create API keys without manually using the portal?
  • I really don't have many resources deployed on Equinix Metal, why should I use Terraform?