Demo Multiple Providers

In this lesson, we explore configuring and managing multiple providers within a single OpenTofu project directory. By the end, you’ll be able to initialize, apply, and troubleshoot provider plugins across various configurations.

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Inspecting an Existing Configuration
3. Initializing Providers
4. Creating a Multi-Provider Configuration
5. Exploring Additional Provider Resources
6. Practice Task: local_file Resource
7. Adding a New Provider-Based Resource
8. Summary & References

1. Overview

OpenTofu allows you to use multiple providers in the same configuration directory. This means you can manage local, random, AWS, Kubernetes, and other resources from a single project.

2. Inspecting an Existing Configuration

Navigate to the example directory:

cd /root/opentofu-projects/multi-provider
ls -1

You should see two resource files and no .terraform folder—initialized provider count: 0.

Main configuration (main.tf):

resource "local_file" "pet_name" {
  content  = "We love pets!"
  filename = "/root/pets.txt"
}

resource "random_pet" "my-pet" {
  prefix    = "Mrs"
  separator = "."
  length    = 1
}

3. Initializing Providers

Initialize the configuration to download provider plugins:

tofu init

Inspect the plugins directory:

ls .terraform/providers

Total providers initialized: 2.

4. Creating a New Multi-Provider Configuration

Create and navigate to a new project:

mkdir -p /root/opentofu-projects/mpl
cd /root/opentofu-projects/mpl

Create pet-name.tf:

resource "local_file" "my-pet" {
  filename = "/root/pet-name"
  content  = "My pet is called Pennegan."
}

resource "random_pet" "other-pet" {
  length    = 1
  prefix    = "Mr"
  separator = "."
}

Initialize and apply:

tofu init
tofu apply

Confirm with yes. Expected output:

random_pet.other-pet: Creation complete after 0s [id=Mr.camel]
local_file.my-pet: Creation complete after 0s [id=/root/pet-name]
Apply complete! Resources: 2 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

5. Exploring Additional Provider Resources

Switch to another example directory:

cd /root/opentofu-projects/provider

In cloud-provider.tf (AWS EC2 instance):

resource "aws_instance" "ec2_instance" {
  ami           = "ami-0eda277a0b884c5ab"
  instance_type = "t2.large"
}

• Instance Type: t2.large

In kube.tf (Kubernetes namespace):

resource "kubernetes_namespace" "dev" {
  metadata {
    name = "development"
  }
}

• Namespace Resource Name: dev

6. Practice Task: Creating a local_file Resource

Create code.tf:

resource "local_file" "iac_code" {
  filename = "/opt/practice"
  content  = "Setting up infrastructure as code"
}

Run validation:

tofu init
tofu validate

Everything should pass successfully.

7. Adding a New Provider-Based Resource

Update code.tf by appending a random_string resource:

resource "local_file" "iac_code" {
  filename = "/opt/practice"
  content  = "Setting up infrastructure as code"
}

resource "random_string" "iac_random" {
  length    = 10
  min_upper = 5
}

Attempt to apply:

tofu apply

You may encounter an inconsistent dependency lock file error.

Upgrade and re-apply:

tofu init -upgrade
tofu apply

Confirm with yes. Expected output:

local_file.iac_code: Creating...
random_string.iac_random: Creating...
Apply complete! Resources: 2 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

8. Summary & References

You’ve successfully:

• Initialized and managed multiple providers
• Created local, random, AWS, and Kubernetes resources
• Upgraded provider lock files

Further reading:

• OpenTofu Documentation
• Terraform Provider Development
• Kubernetes Namespace Resource