How to authenticate artifactory to TFE workspace

Introduction

This article explains how to configure a Terraform Enterprise (TFE) workspace to authenticate with Artifactory for downloading private Terraform modules during a run. When a Terraform run is triggered in TFE, it will automatically retrieve the necessary module source code from Artifactory without requiring manual intervention.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

1. An Artifactory authentication token. For instructions, refer to the JFrog documentation on how to generate an access token for Terraform.
2. Terraform configuration files that reference the private modules stored in Artifactory.
3. The module source path in your Terraform configuration points to the correct Artifactory URL where your modules are stored.

Procedure

To authenticate a TFE workspace to Artifactory, you can use a host-specific environment variable in your workspace settings. Terraform CLI uses environment variables with the prefix TF_TOKEN_ followed by the hostname to authenticate to private module registries.

To create the variable name, replace any periods (.) in the hostname with underscores (_). For example, if your Artifactory hostname is examplecorp.jfrog.io, you must create an environment variable named TF_TOKEN_examplecorp_jfrog_io.

1. Navigate to your workspace in Terraform Enterprise.
2. Go to the Variables section.
3. Under Environment Variables, select Add variable.
4. Enter the Key using the TF_TOKEN_ format. For example: TF_TOKEN_examplecorp_jfrog_io.
5. Enter your Artifactory authentication token as the Value.
6. Mark the variable as Sensitive to protect the token.
7. Click Save variable.

Terraform will now use this token as a bearer authorization token for all service requests to that hostname.

Additional Information

For more details on this authentication method, please see the official documentation on Environment Variable Credentials.