Most Recent HashiCorp Terraform-Associate-003 Exam Questions & Answers

The key principle of infrastructure as code that is not listed among the options is golden images. Golden images are pre-configured, ready-to-use virtual machine images that contain a specific set of software and configuration. They are often used to create multiple identical instances of the same environment, such as for testing or production. However, golden images are not a principle of infrastructure as code, but rather a technique that can be used with or without infrastructure as code. The other options are all key principles of infrastructure as code, as explained below:

Self-describing infrastructure: This means that the infrastructure is defined in code that describes its desired state, rather than in scripts that describe the steps to create it. This makes the infrastructure easier to understand, maintain, and reproduce.

Idempotence: This means that applying the same infrastructure code multiple times will always result in the same state, regardless of the initial state. This makes the infrastructure consistent and predictable, and avoids errors or conflicts caused by repeated actions.

References = [Introduction to Infrastructure as Code with Terraform], [Infrastructure as Code in a Private or Public Cloud]

Terraform validate reports configuration consistency errors, such as declaring a resource identifier more than once. This means that the same resource type and name combination is used for multiple resource blocks, which is not allowed in Terraform. For example, resource 'aws_instance' 'example' {...} cannot be used more than once in the same configuration. Terraform validate does not report errors related to module versions, state differences, or formatting issues, as these are not relevant for checking the configuration syntax and structure.

References = [Validate Configuration], [Resource Syntax]

The terraform plan command does not update the state file. Instead, it reads the current state and the configuration files to determine what changes would be made to bring the real-world infrastructure into the desired state defined in the configuration. The plan operation is a read-only operation and does not modify the state or the infrastructure. It is the terraform apply command that actually applies changes and updates the state file.

References = Terraform's official guidelines and documentation clarify the purpose of the terraform plan command, highlighting its role in preparing and showing an execution plan without making any changes to the actual state or infrastructure .

This is what state locking accomplishes, by preventing other users from modifying the state file while a Terraform operation is in progress. This prevents conflicts and data loss.

This is the command that always causes a state file to be updated with changes that might have been made outside of Terraform, as it will only refresh the state file with the current status of the real resources, without making any changes to them or creating a plan.