Automate NSX-T Build with Terraform

Terraform is a widely adopted Infrastructure as Code tool that allow you to define your infrastructure using a simple, declarative programming language, and to deploy and manage infrastructure across public cloud providers including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud & IBM Cloud and other infrastructure providers like VMware NSX-T, F5 Big-IP etc.

In this blog, I will show you how to leverage Terraform NSX-T provider to define a NSX-T tenant environment in minutes.

To build the new NSX-T environment, I am going to:

Create a new Tier1 router named tier1_router;
Create three logical switches under newly created Tier1 router for web/app/db security zone;
Connect the newly created Tier1 router to the existing Tier0 router;
Create a new network service group including SSH and HTTPs;
Create a new firewall section and add a firewall rule to allow outbound SSH/HTTPs traffic from any workload in web logical switch to any workload in app logical switch;

Firstly, I define a Terraform module as below. Note: Terraform module is normally used to define reusable components. For example, the module which I defined here can be re-used to complete non-prod and prod environment build when you provide different input.

/*
provider "nsxt" {
  allow_unverified_ssl = true
  max_retries = 10
  retry_min_delay = 500
  retry_max_delay = 5000
  retry_on_status_codes = [429]
}
*/

data "nsxt_transport_zone" "overlay_transport_zone" {
  display_name = "tz-overlay"
}

data "nsxt_logical_tier0_router" "tier0_router" {
  display_name = "t0"
}

data "nsxt_edge_cluster" "edge_cluster" {
  display_name = "edge-cluster"
}

resource "nsxt_logical_router_link_port_on_tier0" "tier0_port_to_tier1" {
  description = "TIER0_PORT1 provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "tier0_port_to_tier1"
  logical_router_id = "${data.nsxt_logical_tier0_router.tier0_router.id}"
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_tier1_router" "tier1_router" {
  description = "RTR1 provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "${var.nsxt_logical_tier1_router_name}"
  #failover_mode = "PREEMPTIVE"
  edge_cluster_id = "${data.nsxt_edge_cluster.edge_cluster.id}"
  enable_router_advertisement = true
  advertise_connected_routes = false
  advertise_static_routes = true
  advertise_nat_routes = true
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_router_link_port_on_tier1" "tier1_port_to_tier0" {
  description  = "TIER1_PORT1 provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "tier1_port_to_tier0"
  logical_router_id = "${nsxt_logical_tier1_router.tier1_router.id}"
  linked_logical_router_port_id = "${nsxt_logical_router_link_port_on_tier0.tier0_port_to_tier1.id}"
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_switch" "LS-terraform-web" {
  admin_state = "UP"
  description = "LogicalSwitch provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "${var.logicalswitch1_name}"
  transport_zone_id = "${data.nsxt_transport_zone.overlay_transport_zone.id}"
  replication_mode  = "MTEP"
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_switch" "LS-terraform-app" {
  admin_state = "UP"
  description = "LogicalSwitch provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "${var.logicalswitch2_name}"
  transport_zone_id = "${data.nsxt_transport_zone.overlay_transport_zone.id}"
  replication_mode  = "MTEP"
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag = "blue"
  }
}


resource "nsxt_logical_switch" "LS-terraform-db" {
  admin_state = "UP"
  description = "LogicalSwitch provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "${var.logicalswitch3_name}"
  transport_zone_id = "${data.nsxt_transport_zone.overlay_transport_zone.id}"
  replication_mode  = "MTEP"
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_port" "lp-terraform-web" {
  admin_state = "UP"
  description = "lp provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "lp-terraform-web"
  logical_switch_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-web.id}"

  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_port" "lp-terraform-app" {
  admin_state = "UP"
  description = "lp provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "lp-terraform-app"
  logical_switch_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-app.id}"

  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_port" "lp-terraform-db" {
  admin_state = "UP"
  description = "lp provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "lp-terraform-db"
  logical_switch_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-db.id}"

  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_router_downlink_port" "lif-terraform-web" {
  description = "lif provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "lif-terraform-web"
  logical_router_id = "${nsxt_logical_tier1_router.tier1_router.id}"
  linked_logical_switch_port_id = "${nsxt_logical_port.lp-terraform-web.id}"
  ip_address = "${var.logicalswitch1_gw}"

  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_router_downlink_port" "lif-terraform-app" {
  description = "lif provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "lif-terraform-app"
  logical_router_id = "${nsxt_logical_tier1_router.tier1_router.id}"
  linked_logical_switch_port_id = "${nsxt_logical_port.lp-terraform-app.id}"
  ip_address = "${var.logicalswitch2_gw}"

  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_logical_router_downlink_port" "lif-terraform-db" {
  description = "lif provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "lif-terraform-db"
  logical_router_id = "${nsxt_logical_tier1_router.tier1_router.id}"
  linked_logical_switch_port_id = "${nsxt_logical_port.lp-terraform-db.id}"
  ip_address = "${var.logicalswitch3_gw}"

  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_l4_port_set_ns_service" "ns_service_tcp_443_22_l4" {
  description = "Service provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "web_to_app"
  protocol = "TCP"
  destination_ports = ["443", "22"]
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag   = "blue"
  }
}

resource "nsxt_firewall_section" "terraform" {
  description = "FS provisioned by Terraform"
  display_name = "Web-App"
  tag {
    scope = "ibm"
    tag = "blue"
  }
  
  applied_to {
    target_type = "LogicalSwitch"
    target_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-web.id}"
  }

  section_type = "LAYER3"
  stateful = true

  rule {
    display_name = "out_rule"
    description  = "Out going rule"
    action = "ALLOW"
    logged = true
    ip_protocol = "IPV4"
    direction = "OUT"

    source {
      target_type = "LogicalSwitch"
      target_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-web.id}"
    }

    destination {
      target_type = "LogicalSwitch"
      target_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-app.id}"
    }
    service {
      target_type = "NSService"
      target_id = "${nsxt_l4_port_set_ns_service.ns_service_tcp_443_22_l4.id}"
    }
    applied_to {
      target_type = "LogicalSwitch"
      target_id = "${nsxt_logical_switch.LS-terraform-web.id}"
    }
  }
}  

output "edge-cluster-id" {
  value = "${data.nsxt_edge_cluster.edge_cluster.id}"
}

output "edge-cluster-deployment_type" {
  value = "${data.nsxt_edge_cluster.edge_cluster.deployment_type}"
}

output "tier0-router-port-id" {
  value = "${nsxt_logical_router_link_port_on_tier0.tier0_port_to_tier1.id}"
}

Then I use the below to call this newly created module:

provider "nsxt" {
  allow_unverified_ssl = true
  max_retries = 10
  retry_min_delay = 500
  retry_max_delay = 5000
  retry_on_status_codes = [429]
}

module "nsxtbuild" {
  source = "/root/terraform/modules/nsxtbuild"
  nsxt_logical_tier1_router_name = "tier1-npr-vr"
  logicalswitch1_name = "npr-web"
  logicalswitch2_name = "npr-app"
  logicalswitch3_name = "npr-db"
  logicalswitch1_gw = "192.168.80.1/24"
  logicalswitch2_gw = "192.168.81.1/24"
  logicalswitch3_gw = "192.168.82.1/24"
}

After “terraform apply”, you can find the required environment is built successfully in NSX Manager.