terraform/website/source/docs/enterprise/runs/installing-software.html.md

layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
enterprise	Runs: Installing Software	docs-enterprise-runs-installing	Installing custom software on the Terraform Runners.

Installing Custom Software

The machines that run Terraform exist in an isolated environment and are destroyed on each use. In some cases, it may be necessary to install certain software on the Terraform runner, such as a configuration management tool like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, or Salt.

The easiest way to install software on the Packer builder is via the local-exec provisioner. This will execute commands on the host machine running Terraform.

resource "null_resource" "local-software" {
  provisioner "local-exec" {
    command = <<EOH
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ansible
EOH
  }
}

Please note that nothing is persisted between Terraform runs, so you will need to install custom software on each run.

The Packer builders run the latest version of Ubuntu LTS.