Automating Infrastructure on AWS with Terraform and GitHub Actions
Explore a hands-on approach to provisioning a custom VPC and EC2 web server using Infrastructure as Code, paired with a fully automated GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline.
When moving from traditional cloud management to modern DevOps workflows, mastering Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automated pipelines is a game-changer. Recently, I set out to build a fully automated cloud infrastructure project on AWS using Terraform and GitHub Actions, moving away from manual console clicking to a clean, repeatable codebase.
Here is a quick look at how the architecture came together and why automating these workflows matters.
- Designing the Custom VPC Infrastructure
Instead of relying entirely on default networking settings, I configured a custom Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) via Terraform. This included:
Custom CIDR blocks tailored for proper network segmentation.
Public Subnets configured with an Internet Gateway and route tables to allow controlled external access.
Security Groups acting as virtual firewalls to restrict inbound and outbound traffic strictly to necessary ports.
- Provisioning Compute and Monitoring
Inside the public subnets, I provisioned an Amazon EC2 web server running Nginx. To ensure the infrastructure remains observable and reliable, I integrated CloudWatch alarms paired with SNS (Simple Notification Service) topics to trigger alerts if system metrics crossed specific thresholds. - Automating Deployments with GitHub Actions
Writing infrastructure code is only half the battle; ensuring it deploys reliably requires robust CI/CD. I integrated a GitHub Actions workflow configured with the following stages:
terraform init & plan: Automatically runs validation and checks preview changes on every pull request.
terraform apply: Provisions and updates the cloud resources securely using encrypted AWS credentials stored as GitHub Secrets.
Why This Matters
Building projects this way bridges the gap between theory and real-world engineering. It teaches you how infrastructure components interact under the hood while maintaining clean version control.
Building projects this way bridges the gap between theory and real-world engineering. It teaches you how infrastructure components interact under the hood while maintaining clean version control.
For those of you building on AWS: what has been your favorite tool or challenge when setting up your first CI/CD pipelines with Terraform? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below!
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