Setting Up AWS SQS with Terraform
Guide

Setting Up AWS SQS with Terraform

By December 25, 2022No Comments

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed message queue service that enables you to decouple and scale microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. SQS eliminates the complexity and overhead associated with managing and operating message-oriented middleware and empowers developers to focus on differentiating their products. In this tutorial, we will show you how to set up AWS SQS with Terraform and perform some basic operations on it, such as sending and receiving messages.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

Setting Up an SQS Queue with Terraform

The first step is to create a Terraform configuration file that defines the resources you want to create. In this case, we will create an SQS queue and an IAM policy that allows us to access the queue.

Here is the configuration file:

resource "aws_sqs_queue" "queue" {
  name = "my-queue"
}

resource "aws_iam_policy" "policy" {
  name = "sqs_access_policy"
  path = "/"

  policy = <<EOF
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "sqs:*",
      "Resource": "${aws_sqs_queue.queue.arn}"
    }
  ]
}
EOF
}

resource "aws_iam_user" "user" {
  name = "sqs_user"
  path = "/"
}

resource "aws_iam_user_policy_attachment" "attach" {
  user = "${aws_iam_user.user.name}"
  policy_arn = "${aws_iam_policy.policy.arn}"
}

Let’s break down the configuration file:

  • The aws_sqs_queue resource creates an SQS queue with the specified name. In this case, the queue is called “my-queue”.
    • The aws_iam_policy resource creates an IAM policy that allows all SQS actions on the queue.
    • The aws_iam_user resource creates an IAM user with the specified name and path.
    • The aws_iam_user_policy_attachment resource attaches the IAM policy to the IAM user, granting them access to the queue.

    To apply the configuration, run the following command:

    terraform apply

    This will create the resources in your AWS account.

    Sending and Receiving Messages with Terraform

    Now that we have created the resources let’s see how we can send and receive messages with Terraform.

    To send a message to the queue, we can use the aws_sqs_queue_message resource. Here is an example configuration:

    resource "aws_sqs_queue_message" "message" {
  queue_url = "${aws_sqs_queue.queue.id}"
  message_body = "Hello, World!"
}

    To receive messages from the queue, we can use the aws_sqs_queue_message data source. Here is an example configuration:

    data "aws_sqs_queue_message" "message" {
  queue_url = "${aws_sqs_queue.queue.id}"
}

    To apply the configuration and send or receive messages, run the following command:

    terraform apply

    You can also use the AWS CLI to interact with the queue. For example, to send a message to the queue:

    aws sqs send-message --queue-url QUEUE_URL --message-body "Hello, World!"

    To receive a message from the queue:

    aws sqs receive-message --queue-url QUEUE_URL

    Cleaning Up

    To delete the resources created in this tutorial, run the following command:

    terraform destroy

    This will delete the SQS queue, IAM policy, IAM user, and all other resources created in this tutorial.

    Conclusion

    In this tutorial, we showed you how to use Terraform to set up an SQS queue and perform some basic operations on it. You can use the same steps to create more complex architectures and automate the deployment of your message queues.

    I hope you found this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.