Quickstart: Create an Azure Front Door (classic) using Terraform

Important

Azure Front Door (classic) will be retired on March 31, 2027. To avoid any service disruption, it is important that you migrate your Azure Front Door (classic) profiles to Azure Front Door Standard or Premium tier by March 2027. For more information, see Azure Front Door (classic) retirement.

This quickstart describes how to use Terraform to create a Front Door (classic) profile to set up high availability for a web endpoint.

In this article, you learn how to:

• Create a random value for the Azure resource group name using random_pet.
• Create an Azure resource group using azurerm_resource_group.
• Create a random value for the Front Door endpoint host name using random_id.
• Create a Front Door (classic) resource using - azurerm_frontdoor.

Prerequisites

• Azure subscription: If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

• Install and configure Terraform

Implement the Terraform code

Note

The sample code for this article is located in the Azure Terraform GitHub repo. You can view the log file containing the test results from current and previous versions of Terraform.

See more articles and sample code showing how to use Terraform to manage Azure resources

1. Create a directory in which to test the sample Terraform code and make it the current directory.

2. Create a file named providers.tf and insert the following code:

   terraform {
     required_version = ">=1.0"
     required_providers {
       azurerm = {
         source  = "hashicorp/azurerm"
         version = "~>3.0"
       }
       random = {
         source  = "hashicorp/random"
         version = "~>3.0"
       }
     }
   }
   provider "azurerm" {
     features {}
   }
   

3. Create a file named main.tf and insert the following code:

   resource "random_pet" "rg-name" {
     prefix = var.resource_group_name_prefix
   }
   
   resource "azurerm_resource_group" "rg" {
     name     = random_pet.rg-name.id
     location = var.resource_group_location
   }
   
   resource "random_id" "front_door_name" {
     byte_length = 8
   }
   
   locals {
     front_door_name                         = "afd-${lower(random_id.front_door_name.hex)}"
     front_door_frontend_endpoint_name       = "frontEndEndpoint"
     front_door_load_balancing_settings_name = "loadBalancingSettings"
     front_door_health_probe_settings_name   = "healthProbeSettings"
     front_door_routing_rule_name            = "routingRule"
     front_door_backend_pool_name            = "backendPool"
   }
   
   resource "azurerm_frontdoor" "main" {
     name                = local.front_door_name
     resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
   
     frontend_endpoint {
       name                     = local.front_door_frontend_endpoint_name
       host_name                = "${local.front_door_name}.azurefd.net"
       session_affinity_enabled = false
     }
   
     backend_pool_load_balancing {
       name                        = local.front_door_load_balancing_settings_name
       sample_size                 = 4
       successful_samples_required = 2
     }
   
     backend_pool_health_probe {
       name                = local.front_door_health_probe_settings_name
       path                = "/"
       protocol            = "Http"
       interval_in_seconds = 120
     }
   
     backend_pool {
       name = local.front_door_backend_pool_name
       backend {
         host_header = var.backend_address
         address     = var.backend_address
         http_port   = 80
         https_port  = 443
         weight      = 50
         priority    = 1
       }
   
       load_balancing_name = local.front_door_load_balancing_settings_name
       health_probe_name   = local.front_door_health_probe_settings_name
     }
   
     backend_pool_settings {
       backend_pools_send_receive_timeout_seconds   = 0
       enforce_backend_pools_certificate_name_check = false
     }
   
     routing_rule {
       name               = local.front_door_routing_rule_name
       accepted_protocols = ["Http", "Https"]
       patterns_to_match  = ["/*"]
       frontend_endpoints = [local.front_door_frontend_endpoint_name]
       forwarding_configuration {
         forwarding_protocol = "MatchRequest"
         backend_pool_name   = local.front_door_backend_pool_name
       }
     }
   }
   

4. Create a file named variables.tf and insert the following code:

   variable "resource_group_location" {
     type        = string
     description = "Location for all resources."
     default     = "eastus"
   }
   
   variable "resource_group_name_prefix" {
     type        = string
     description = "Prefix of the resource group name that's combined with a random ID so name is unique in your Azure subscription."
     default     = "rg"
   }
   
   variable "backend_address" {
     type    = string
     description = "Backend address."
     default = "www.bing.com"
   }
   

5. Create a file named outputs.tf and insert the following code, being sure to update the value to your own backend hostname:

   output "resource_group_name" {
     value = azurerm_resource_group.rg.name
   }
   
   output "frontDoorEndpointHostName" {
     value = azurerm_frontdoor.main.frontend_endpoint[0].host_name
   }
   

Initialize Terraform

Run terraform init to initialize the Terraform deployment. This command downloads the Azure provider required to manage your Azure resources.

terraform init -upgrade

Key points:

• The -upgrade parameter upgrades the necessary provider plugins to the newest version that complies with the configuration's version constraints.

Create a Terraform execution plan

Run terraform plan to create an execution plan.

terraform plan -out main.tfplan

Key points:

• The terraform plan command creates an execution plan, but doesn't execute it. Instead, it determines what actions are necessary to create the configuration specified in your configuration files. This pattern allows you to verify whether the execution plan matches your expectations before making any changes to actual resources.
• The optional -out parameter allows you to specify an output file for the plan. Using the -out parameter ensures that the plan you reviewed is exactly what is applied.

Apply a Terraform execution plan

Run terraform apply to apply the execution plan to your cloud infrastructure.

terraform apply main.tfplan

Key points:

• The example terraform apply command assumes you previously ran terraform plan -out main.tfplan.
• If you specified a different filename for the -out parameter, use that same filename in the call to terraform apply.
• If you didn't use the -out parameter, call terraform apply without any parameters.

Verify the results

1. Get the Front Door endpoint:

   terraform output -raw frontDoorEndpointHostName
   

2. Paste the endpoint into a browser.

   

Clean up resources

When you no longer need the resources created via Terraform, do the following steps:

1. Run terraform plan and specify the destroy flag.

   terraform plan -destroy -out main.destroy.tfplan
   

   Key points:

   • The terraform plan command creates an execution plan, but doesn't execute it. Instead, it determines what actions are necessary to create the configuration specified in your configuration files. This pattern allows you to verify whether the execution plan matches your expectations before making any changes to actual resources.
   • The optional -out parameter allows you to specify an output file for the plan. Using the -out parameter ensures that the plan you reviewed is exactly what is applied.

2. Run terraform apply to apply the execution plan.

   terraform apply main.destroy.tfplan
   

Troubleshoot Terraform on Azure

Troubleshoot common problems when using Terraform on Azure

Next steps

Overview of Azure Front Door