Terraform Associate Exam 2

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Question

You’ve been assigned to work on a Terraform project that uses remote state storage to manage state across multiple team members. During a Terraform apply, you encounter the following error:

What is the most likely cause of this error, and how should you resolve it?

Another user or process is currently running a Terraform operation on the same state. You should wait for them to complete their operation and retry the apply.

The remote state backend is misconfigured. Correct the backend configuration in the Terraform code and reinitialize Terraform.

There is a state lock that was left over from a previous Terraform operation that didn't terminate correctly. You can manually unlock the state using `terraform force-unlock`.

The Terraform state backend does not support locking. Switch to a backend that supports state locking to resolve concurrency issues.

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Question

You are tasked with managing a large-scale multi-cloud infrastructure deployment using Terraform. The team uses Terraform modules extensively, and you notice that resource dependencies are sometimes not clear, leading to unexpected resource creation order or failures.

How can you explicitly define dependencies between resources in Terraform to avoid these issues?

By using the `depends_on` meta-argument in resource blocks to explicitly declare the dependency relationships between resources.

By leveraging implicit dependencies based on resource references (e.g., using outputs or attributes from one resource in another's configuration).

By grouping dependent resources in the same Terraform module to ensure they are created in the correct order by default.

By using the `terraform graph` command to visualize dependencies and manually adjust the creation order as needed.

3 / 10

Question

Your team uses Terraform modules to deploy AWS resources across different accounts. You recently noticed that a module is being invoked multiple times with slightly different configurations, causing resources to overlap and conflicts. To address this issue, you want to ensure the unique identification of module instances across different deployments.

Which approach should you use to avoid this issue?

Use hard-coded names in the `module` block for uniqueness to distinguish resource naming conventions between deployments.

Use the `count` parameter with a random index to dynamically generate unique resource names for each module invocation.

Pass a unique identifier using input variables (e.g., environment names) to dynamically scope and parameterize each module's instance configuration.

Define multiple versions of the same module in different directories and import only one version at a time into Terraform configurations.

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Question

You are part of a team using Terraform to manage AWS infrastructure. During a recent Terraform apply, you accidentally applied changes to the wrong environment. To mitigate the impact, you need to rollback the changes safely without destroying all the resources in the environment.

Which Terraform command should you use to undo only the recent changes without affecting the entire state or resources?

terraform apply -target= -destroy

terraform destroy -target=

terraform state rm

terraform plan -destroy && terraform apply

5 / 10

Question

You are using Terraform to manage infrastructure in AWS. Your team uses modules extensively to standardize code, but you notice that changes in one environment unexpectedly affect resources in other environments.

Which of the following is the most likely cause of this issue?

Shared variables are hardcoded and not dynamically scoped per environment, leading to unintended resource changes across multiple deployments.

Terraform Workspaces are not being used to isolate state across environments such as dev, staging, and production.

Resource names are defined globally without using environment prefixes, leading to naming collisions across multiple deployments.

Incorrect use of shared remote state leads to Terraform overwriting other environments' resources unintentionally during operations.

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Question

You are collaborating on a Terraform project with a team. The team has implemented remote state storage with Amazon S3 and state locking with DynamoDB. During the execution of a Terraform run, you encounter an error stating that Terraform cannot access the S3 remote state due to insufficient permissions.

What is the most likely reason for this error?

The IAM role or user executing Terraform does not have permissions for `s3:GetObject`, `s3:ListBucket`, or `s3:PutObject` on the S3 bucket.

The Terraform configuration has a typo in the `backend` block configuration, pointing to the wrong S3 bucket name or region.

The DynamoDB table is misconfigured and does not allow state locking because the table name is incorrect or permissions are missing.

There is a version mismatch between Terraform and the state stored in the remote S3 bucket, causing Terraform to fail on initialization.

7 / 10

Question

You are managing a Terraform project that uses modules to deploy AWS resources across multiple environments (development, staging, production). You want to ensure that configuration settings like VPC CIDR blocks or instance sizes vary across these environments without duplicating code.

Which Terraform feature should you use to make this configuration dynamic and environment-specific?

Use hardcoded values for each environment to ensure simplicity and remove external configuration dependencies.

Use Terraform Workspaces to manage state and configuration across different environments dynamically.

Use input variables with default values in modules and override them at runtime with environment variables or CLI arguments.

Split the Terraform code into completely separate modules and repository branches for each environment without sharing any configuration.

8 / 10

Question

You are working on a team that uses Terraform with remote state storage in AWS S3 and state locking with DynamoDB. Your team notices that when changes are applied, Terraform is taking a long time to compute the plan and apply. You suspect that the remote state is unnecessarily large due to storing resources that are no longer needed.

What is the recommended approach to optimize Terraform’s state file and ensure only necessary resources are included?

Use terraform state rm to remove unnecessary resources from the Terraform state and then run terraform apply to proceed.

Use terraform state pull to download a fresh copy of the remote state and re-upload it without old resource data.

Run terraform state compact to shrink and optimize the remote state file by removing unused resource references.

Run terraform destroy for all resources not actively managed by Terraform and reapply the Terraform code afterward.

9 / 10

Question

You are managing Terraform in a production environment. Your team has been tasked to set up logging for Terraform operations to monitor and debug changes. You need to ensure that logs are stored securely and persist across runs.

Which approach is the most appropriate to achieve this?

Enable logging by setting the TF_LOG environment variable before running Terraform commands, and store the logs in a centralized logging system manually.

Use the `terraform logging` command in combination with a file backend to automatically persist Terraform logs across runs securely.

Set the `TF_LOG` environment variable to capture logs and redirect the output to a secured S3 bucket using Terraform's remote backend configurations.

Configure Terraform Cloud or Terraform Enterprise to automatically log state changes and commands securely in a team-based activity audit log.

10 / 10

Question

You are working on a Terraform project that provisions resources in AWS. Your team uses remote state storage with S3 and has enabled DynamoDB for state locking to prevent simultaneous changes. However, you notice that during certain deployments, Terraform fails with an error stating that the state is locked by another operation.

What should you do to resolve this issue safely?

Manually delete the lock file from the S3 bucket to resolve the state lock issue.

Use terraform force-unlock followed by terraform apply to release the lock safely.

Wait for the other Terraform operation to complete before running the next terraform plan or apply.

Disable DynamoDB locking and perform all Terraform operations locally to bypass locking entirely.

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Correct Answer: C

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Correct Answer: C

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Correct Answer: A

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Correct Answer: A

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Correct Answer: C

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: C

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Correct Answer: B

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: B

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Correct Answer: C

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: C

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Correct Answer: A

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: A

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

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Correct Answer: C

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: C

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

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Correct Answer: A

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: A

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Correct Answer: D

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: D

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Correct Answer: B

Why Other Options Are Incorrect

Correct Answer: B

Why Other Options Are Incorrect