Installing Terraform

Before You Begin

Terraform ships as a single static binary: no runtime, no dependencies, no virtual environments. You download one file, place it on your PATH, and you are done. This simplicity is one of Terraform's best qualities.

This tutorial covers three installation paths:

• macOS: using Homebrew (recommended) or manual download
• Linux: using the HashiCorp apt/yum repository or manual download
• Windows: using Chocolatey/Winget or manual download

After installing, you will verify the setup and run a real (but harmless) Terraform configuration that writes a local file, no cloud account needed.

Installing on macOS

Option 1: Homebrew (Recommended)

Homebrew is the fastest and cleanest way to install Terraform on macOS. It handles upgrades automatically.

# Add the official HashiCorp tap
brew tap hashicorp/tap

# Install Terraform
brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform

To upgrade to a newer version later:

brew upgrade hashicorp/tap/terraform

Option 2: Manual Download

If you do not use Homebrew, download the binary directly:

1. Go to releases.hashicorp.com/terraform
2. Download the latest .zip for darwin_amd64 (Intel) or darwin_arm64 (Apple Silicon)
3. Unzip it and move the binary to /usr/local/bin:

unzip terraform_*.zip
sudo mv terraform /usr/local/bin/

Installing on Linux

Debian and Ubuntu (apt)

Add the official HashiCorp repository and install:

# Install dependencies
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y gnupg software-properties-common

# Add HashiCorp's GPG key
wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | \
  sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg

# Add the repository
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] \
  https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list

# Install Terraform
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install terraform

To upgrade later, run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade terraform.

RHEL, CentOS, Amazon Linux (yum/dnf)

# Add the HashiCorp repo
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo

# Install Terraform
sudo yum -y install terraform

Manual Download (any Linux)

# Find the latest version at releases.hashicorp.com
TERRAFORM_VERSION="1.9.0"

wget "https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/${TERRAFORM_VERSION}/terraform_${TERRAFORM_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip"
unzip "terraform_${TERRAFORM_VERSION}_linux_amd64.zip"
sudo mv terraform /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/terraform

Tip: Replace linux_amd64 with linux_arm64 if you are on an ARM machine such as a Raspberry Pi or AWS Graviton instance.

Installing on Windows

Option 1: Winget (Windows Package Manager)

Windows 11 and recent Windows 10 builds include Winget:

winget install HashiCorp.Terraform

Option 2: Chocolatey

choco install terraform

Option 3: Manual Download

1. Go to releases.hashicorp.com/terraform and download the latest windows_amd64.zip
2. Unzip and place terraform.exe somewhere, for example C:\tools\terraform\
3. Add that folder to your system PATH:
   • Open System Properties → Advanced → Environment Variables
   • Under System Variables, find Path and click Edit
   • Click New and add C:\tools\terraform

Managing Multiple Terraform Versions with tfenv

In production you often work across several projects that use different Terraform versions. tfenv is a version manager (similar to nvm for Node.js) that lets you switch between versions per project.

Install tfenv (macOS/Linux)

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tfutils/tfenv.git ~/.tfenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.tfenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Install and switch versions

# List available versions
tfenv list-remote

# Install a specific version
tfenv install 1.9.0

# Use it
tfenv use 1.9.0

Create a .terraform-version file in your project root to pin the version automatically:

echo "1.9.0" > .terraform-version

Anyone who clones the repo and has tfenv installed will automatically use the same version.

Verifying the Installation

No matter how you installed it, confirm Terraform is available:

terraform -version

Expected output (version numbers will differ):

Terraform v1.9.0
on darwin_arm64

If you see command not found, the binary is not on your PATH. Double-check the installation steps above.

Enabling Shell Autocomplete

Terraform supports tab completion for commands and resource types. Enable it once:

terraform -install-autocomplete

Restart your shell. Now you can type terraform pl<TAB> and it will complete to terraform plan.

Your First Terraform Project

Let us run a real Terraform configuration, one that does not require a cloud account. You will use the built-in local provider to create a text file on your computer.

Step 1: Create a project folder

mkdir ~/terraform-hello
cd ~/terraform-hello

Step 2: Write the configuration

Create a file called main.tf with this content:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    local = {
      source  = "hashicorp/local"
      version = "~> 2.4"
    }
  }

  required_terraform = {
    version = ">= 1.5.0"
  }
}

resource "local_file" "hello" {
  filename = "${path.module}/hello.txt"
  content  = "Hello from Terraform! Built by DevOpsLesson."
}

Step 3: Initialise the project

terraform init

Output:

Initializing the backend...
Initializing provider plugins...
- Finding hashicorp/local versions matching "~> 2.4"...
- Installing hashicorp/local v2.4.1...

Terraform has been successfully initialized!

terraform init downloaded the local provider plugin. You will see a new .terraform/ directory and a .terraform.lock.hcl file, commit the lock file to Git, and add .terraform/ to your .gitignore.

Step 4: Preview with terraform plan

terraform plan

Output:

Terraform will perform the following actions:

  # local_file.hello will be created
  + resource "local_file" "hello" {
      + content              = "Hello from Terraform! Built by DevOpsLesson."
      + filename             = "/Users/you/terraform-hello/hello.txt"
      + id                   = (known after apply)
    }

Plan: 1 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

+ means a resource will be created. Nothing has changed yet, this is just the preview.

Step 5: Apply the configuration

terraform apply

Terraform shows the plan again and prompts you:

Do you want to perform these actions?
  Terraform will perform the actions described above.
  Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.

  Enter a value: yes

Type yes and press Enter. Terraform creates hello.txt.

cat hello.txt
# Hello from Terraform! Built by DevOpsLesson.

Step 6: Inspect the state file

cat terraform.tfstate

You will see a JSON file describing the resource Terraform just created. This is the state file: Terraform's record of what it manages. Never edit it by hand.

Step 7: Clean up

terraform destroy

Terraform will show what it plans to delete and ask for confirmation. Type yes. The hello.txt file is removed.

What Goes in .gitignore

When you commit a Terraform project, include this in your .gitignore:

# Terraform directory (downloaded providers)
.terraform/

# State files, store these in a remote backend, not Git
*.tfstate
*.tfstate.backup

# Override files
override.tf
override.tf.json
*_override.tf
*_override.tf.json

# Variables file with secrets
*.auto.tfvars
terraform.tfvars

Important: Never commit terraform.tfstate or terraform.tfvars (which may contain secrets) to a public repository.

Recommended Project Structure

For a real project, a clean file layout looks like this:

my-project/
├── main.tf          # Core resources
├── variables.tf     # Input variable declarations
├── outputs.tf       # Output value declarations
├── providers.tf     # Provider configuration
├── versions.tf      # terraform{} block with version constraints
└── terraform.tfvars # Variable values (gitignored if sensitive)

Splitting files by concern, rather than dumping everything in main.tf, makes large configurations much easier to navigate.

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