Get Started

Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code tool that allows you to define and manage your infrastructure resources in a declarative way. This guide will help you get started with using the Quant Terraform provider to manage your QuantCDN resources.

Tip

Terraform maintains your configuration state, which can be broken when you make configuration changes through both Terraform and either the QuantCDN Dashboard or API.

To avoid this state, make sure you manage Terraform resources only in Terraform. For more details, refer to our best practices.

Prerequisites

1. Install Terraform 1.0 or later. The provider uses plugin protocol 6.
2. Have a Quant account and a dashboard API token. Tokens are per platform: create the token on the dashboard of the platform you use. A project Quant-Token does not work.

Installation

1. Install Terraform by following the official Install Terraform guide.

2. Create a new directory for your Terraform configuration:

   mkdir quant-terraform-project
   cd quant-terraform-project

3. Create a main.tf file in this directory to define your Terraform configuration.

Configuration

1. In your main.tf file, add the Quant provider block:

   terraform {
       required_providers {
           quant = {
               source  = "quantcdn/quant"
               version = "~> 5.14" # Allows 5.14 and later 5.x releases
           }
       }
   }
   
   provider "quant" {
       organization = "your_organization_id_here"
       # QuantGov only: the bare dashboard host, with no path.
       # base_url = "https://dash.quantgov.cloud"
   }

2. Replace "your_organization_id_here" with your organisation machine name.

3. Set the API token in the environment instead of the configuration file:

   export QUANTCDN_API_TOKEN="<your-dashboard-api-token>"

   You can also set bearer in the provider block from a sensitive variable. Do not write the token in a .tf file.

Platform and base_url

base_url is the bare dashboard host of your platform. The provider adds the API path (/api/v2 or /api/v3) itself, so a value that ends in /api/v2 doubles the path and every request fails.

Platform	base_url
QuantCDN (default)	https://dashboard.quantcdn.io
QuantGov	https://dash.quantgov.cloud

Each setting also has an environment variable: QUANTCDN_API_TOKEN (bearer), QUANTCDN_ORGANIZATION (organization), QUANTCDN_BASE_URL (base_url) and QUANTCDN_TIMEOUT_SECONDS (timeout_seconds, default 120). Terraform state holds secrets such as project write tokens and KV values, so use an encrypted remote backend.

Define Resources

Now you can start defining QuantCDN resources in your main.tf file. For example, to create a new project:

resource "quant_project" "example" {
    name = "example"
    description = "An example project"
}

Initialize and Apply

1. Initialize the Terraform working directory:

terraform init

2. Review the planned changes:

terraform plan

3. Apply the configuration:

terraform apply

Import existing resources

To manage a resource that you created in the dashboard, write the resource block, import it, then run terraform plan until it shows no changes. Do not delete and re-create the resource.

Resource	Import ID
quant_project	Project machine name
quant_domain	project/domain_id (numeric ID)
quant_header	Project machine name
quant_rule_* (all rule types)	project/rule_uuid
quant_crawler	project:crawler_uuid (bare uuid = project default)
quant_crawler_schedule	project:crawler_uuid:schedule_id
quant_kv_store	project/store_id
quant_kv_item	project/store_id/key
quant_application	Application name
quant_environment	application/env_name
quant_volume	application/environment/volume_id
quant_cron_job	application/environment/cron_name

terraform import quant_domain.www "my-project/9555"

Drift and one tool per resource

• Apply overwrites any difference from your configuration. A rule that Terraform manages should not be edited in the dashboard.
• Lists on a rule (url, domain, ip_is and others) and the headers map of quant_header are replaced as a whole. A value added in the dashboard is removed on the next apply.
• Set name and project on every rule. They are optional in the schema and filled in from the API when omitted.
• Traffic source and user agent conditions on a bot challenge rule can be set only in the dashboard. Keep those rules in the dashboard, not in Terraform.
• Run terraform plan -refresh-only to see what changed on the platform without changing anything.

Troubleshooting

Error	Cause and fix
Every request fails with 404 or an HTML page	base_url ends in /api/v2 or /api/v3. Use the bare dashboard host.
Provider returned invalid result object after apply	A provider bug: a computed attribute stayed unknown after the API call. It is not a configuration error. Run terraform plan before applying again (the object may already exist), upgrade with terraform init -upgrade, and report it at the provider issue tracker if it persists on the latest release.
does not support resource type	The version constraint is too old. Use ~> 5.14.
Invalid import ID	Use the formats in the import table. Rule IDs need a valid UUID.

Next Steps

• Explore the Quant Terraform Provider Documentation for more resources and data sources.
• Learn about Terraform state management to collaborate with team members.
• Set up remote state storage for better team collaboration and security.