Terraform cannot ssh into EC2 instance to upload files - terraform

Question

I am trying to get a basic terraform example up and running and then push a very simple flask application in a docker container there. The script all works if I remove the file provisioner section and the user data section. The pem file is in the same location on my disk as the main.tf script and the terraform.exe file.
If I leave the file provisioner in then the script fails with the following error:
Error: Error applying plan:
1 error(s) occurred:
* aws_launch_configuration.example: 1 error(s) occurred:
* dial tcp :22: connectex: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.
If I remove the file provisioning section the script runs fine and I can ssh into the created instance using my private key so the key_name part seems to be working ok, I think its to do with the file provisioner trying to connect to add my files.
Here is my launch configuration from my script, I have tried using the connection block which I got from another post online but I cant see what I am doing wrong.
resource "aws_launch_configuration" "example" {
image_id = "${lookup(var.eu_west_ami, var.region)}"
instance_type = "t2.micro"
key_name = "Terraform-python"
security_groups = ["${aws_security_group.instance.id}"]
provisioner "file" {
source = "python/hello_flask.py"
destination = "/home/ec2-user/hello_flask.py"
connection {
type = "ssh"
user = "ec2-user"
private_key = "${file("Terraform-python.pem")}"
timeout = "2m"
agent = false
}
}
provisioner "file" {
source = "python/flask_dockerfile"
destination = "/home/ec2-user/flask_dockerfile"
connection {
type = "ssh"
user = "ec2-user"
private_key = "${file("Terraform-python.pem")}"
timeout = "2m"
agent = false
}
}
user_data = <<-EOF
#!/bin/bash
sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install -y docker
sudo service docker start
sudo usermod -a -G docker ec2-user
sudo docker build -t flask_dockerfile:latest /home/ec2-user/flask_dockerfile
sudo docker run -d -p 5000:5000 flask_dockerfile
EOF
lifecycle {
create_before_destroy = true
}
}
It is probably something very simple and stupid that I am doing, thanks in advance for anyone that takes a look.

Answer 1

aws_launch_configuration is not an actual EC2 instance but just a 'template' to launch instances. Thus, it is not possible to connect to it via SSH.
To copy those file you have two options:
Creating a custom AMI. For that, you can use Packer or Terraform itself, launching an EC2 instance with aws_instance and these file provisioners, and creating an AMI from it with aws_ami
The second one is not a best practice but if the files are short, you can include them in the user_data.