terraform/website/source/docs/provisioners/connection.html.markdown

layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	Provisioner Connections	docs-provisioners-connection	Many provisioners require access to the remote resource. For example, a provisioner may need to use ssh to connect to the resource.

Provisioner Connections

Many provisioners require access to the remote resource. For example, a provisioner may need to use ssh to connect to the resource.

Terraform uses a number of defaults when connecting to a resource, but these can be overridden using connection block in either a resource or provisioner. Any connection information provided in a resource will apply to all the provisioners, but it can be scoped to a single provisioner as well. One use case is to have an initial provisioner connect as root to setup user accounts, and have subsequent provisioners connect as a user with more limited permissions.

Example usage

# Copies the file as the root user using a password
provisioner "file" {
    source = "conf/myapp.conf"
    destination = "/etc/myapp.conf"
    connection {
        user = "root"
        password = "${var.root_password}"
    }
}

Argument Reference

The following arguments are supported:

• type - The connection type that should be used. This defaults to "ssh". The type of connection supported depends on the provisioner.

• user - The user that we should use for the connection. This defaults to "root".

• password - The password we should use for the connection.

• key_file - The SSH key to use for the connection. This takes preference over the password if provided.

• agent - Set to true to enable using ssh-agent to authenticate.

• host - The address of the resource to connect to. This is provided by the provider.

• port - The port to connect to. This defaults to 22.

• timeout - The timeout to wait for the connection to become available. This defaults to 5 minutes. Should be provided as a string like "30s" or "5m".