Caution
Information in this section refers to a future offering that may not be available at this time. This documentation may also be updated at any time. Please reach out to your Account Manager for more information.
Frequently Asked Questions¶
Should I have a backup of my GitHub repositories? Does Rackspace keep a backup of them as well?¶
GitHub keeps three copies of all data; we believe that these assurances about data reliability are adequate. Beyond that, we also have a copy of the Terraform files for every build that runs through CircleCI, as well as local copies of all revisions anywhere that someone has checked out a local copy recently. We are confident this is enough redundancy to keep your infrastructure safe, however GitHub does offer some tooling suggestions if you would like to create an additional backup of your data on your own.
Why am I seeing Terraform plans with EC2 instances that have one security group removed?¶
This is most likely from Passport. You should close the Passport request before making infrastructure changes, or restore the removed security group once the change has been applied.
I’ve submitted a pull request to my repository. Why isn’t it being tested and checked by the continuous automation?¶
This most commonly occurs if you’ve created a fork of your repository and you’re submitting a pull request from that fork instead of a branch on the same repository. In order to protect against the exfiltration of build data, our CI system won’t build from a fork. Please push your forked branch to a branch on the original repository.
I’m seeing authentication failures in CloudTrail and in Compass when Terraform runs. What are these and what can I do about them?¶
Unfortunately, the DescribeVpcClassicLinkDnsSupport API call, used by the Terraform provider for AWS to determine EC2 capabilities, is recorded as an authentication failure when an AWS account does not have “EC2 Classic” enabled (a previous generation of the EC2 service). When this occurs, CloudTrail records an error message "This request has been administratively disabled".
How do you handle multiple, concurrent changes? Won’t they break on each other?¶
Pull requests are designed to fail testing when the branch is out of date with master. This ensures we’ll only apply one set of Terraform changes at a time. We believe this provides adequate concurrency limits to prevent problems.
How do protect resources from accidental deletion?¶
Some Terraform-created resources should be protected from deletion, either due to external dependencies or because they contain data that shouldn’t ever be destroyed. Likewise, sometimes a new resource should be created before the older one is removed, so that there’s always a resource available to serve requests. For these use cases, we recommend using lifecycle blocks on resources to ensure they are never deleted, or are re-created in a specific order.
How do I tell Terraform to ignore my application deployment pipeline’s changes? Other types of third-party changes?¶
For various reasons, you may want to ignore certain attributes on a resource. You may be updating a version attribute as part of a separate application deployment pipeline, or using a third-party service that manages a specific resource in AWS. For these use cases, we recommend using the ignore_changes attribute on specific resources. This should be used sparingly, as it has associated risks and makes your infrastructure harder to rebuild in a repeatable way.
How do I reapply the master branch on my account, without making infrastructure changes?¶
The most straightforward way to do this is by making a simple whitespace/comment change to any layers you’d like to have re-applied. Please reach out to your Support team if you need further assistance. At the current time, Rackspace does not monitor for outstanding/unapplied changes between your Terraform configuration and your infrastructure.
Can I take my Terraform files and scripts with me if I leave Rackspace?¶
Just as you own your infrastructure, the Terraform to build that infrastructure can be downloaded and taken with you at any time. All Terraform module dependencies are public as well. If you’d like assistance in cloning your GitHub repository or downloading your Terraform files, please open a ticket with us.
What is the IAM user on my account being used for? How can I be sure it is secure?¶
We’re allocating an IAM user on every AWS account strictly to be used by Terraform when running through the CI system. This user’s access keys are known only to the CI system. We will eventually remove this user and use a new process that relies on API keys, scoped only to your AWS account, that can be used by the CI system to get temporary, short-lived credentials that have access to build and manage resources in your AWS account.
How many users can I add to GitHub? How do I add them?¶
By default, we limit the number of users we can add to your GitHub repositories to fifteen (15). Please contact us if you need additional users added, or need to exceed that limit.
How can I request a pull request review from Rackspace?¶
Our tooling and automation automatically tracks pull requests that you create, and prioritizes their review to our Support Teams. Please give us a call if you have something you need urgent review on, and we’ll review immediately with you.
How do I give feedback on the infrastructure-as-code beta?¶
Please open a normal Rackspace support ticket and submit your feedback. Support Rackers will pass your feedback along to our product teams. Your feedback means a lot to us. Thank you.