spinifex/docs/terraform/nginx-webserver

title, description, category, tags, resources

title	description	category	tags	resources
Nginx Web Server	Deploy a VPC with a public subnet and an EC2 instance running Nginx using Terraform on Spinifex.	Terraform Workbooks	terraform nginx ec2 vpc workbook	title url Terraform AWS Provider https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/aws/latest title url Spinifex Repository https://github.com/mulgadc/spinifex title url OpenTofu https://opentofu.org/

Terraform: Nginx Web Server

Deploy a VPC with a public subnet and an EC2 instance running Nginx using Terraform on Spinifex.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Instructions
• Troubleshooting

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Overview

Deploy a complete Nginx web server on Spinifex using Terraform/OpenTofu. This workbook provisions a VPC, public subnet, internet gateway, route table, security group, SSH key pair, and an EC2 instance with cloud-init user-data that installs and starts Nginx.

What you'll learn:

• Configuring the AWS Terraform provider to target Spinifex
• Creating a VPC with public internet access
• Provisioning an EC2 instance with cloud-init user-data
• Generating SSH key pairs with the TLS provider

Prerequisites:

• Spinifex installed and running (see Installing Spinifex)
• A Debian 12 AMI imported (see Setting Up Your Cluster)
• OpenTofu or Terraform installed
• AWS_PROFILE=spinifex configured

Instructions

Step 1. Get the Template

Clone the Terraform examples from the Spinifex repository:

git clone --depth 1 --filter=blob:none --sparse https://github.com/mulgadc/spinifex.git spinifex-tf
cd spinifex-tf
git sparse-checkout set docs/terraform
cd docs/terraform/nginx-webserver

Or create a main.tf file and paste the full configuration below.

Step 2. Deploy

export AWS_PROFILE=spinifex
tofu init
tofu apply

Step 3. Verify

Note: EC2 instances can take 30+ seconds to boot after apply. If SSH or HTTP is unreachable, wait and retry.

After apply completes, use the outputs to test:

curl http://<public_ip>
ssh -i nginx-demo.pem ec2-user@<public_ip>

Open the web_url output in your browser to see the Nginx welcome page.

Clean Up

tofu destroy

Troubleshooting

AMI Not Found

Ensure you have imported a Debian 12 image. Check available AMIs:

aws ec2 describe-images --owners 000000000000 --profile spinifex

Provider Connection Refused

Verify Spinifex services are running:

sudo systemctl status spinifex.target
curl -k https://localhost:9999/

SSH Connection Timeout

Check that the security group allows inbound SSH (port 22) and that the instance has a public IP assigned. Verify the instance is running:

aws ec2 describe-instances --profile spinifex

Nginx Not Responding

SSH into the instance and check cloud-init logs:

ssh -i nginx-demo.pem ec2-user@<public_ip>
sudo journalctl -u cloud-init --no-pager
sudo systemctl status nginx