BlastRadius 0.1.23

Interactive visualizations of Terraform dependency graphs

# Blast Radius

[](https://badge.fury.io/py/BlastRadius) 

*Blast Radius* is a tool for reasoning about *Terraform* dependency graphs with interactive visualizations. Use *Blast Radius* to:
* **Learn** about *Terraform* or one of its cloud providers, through [example configurations](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/).
* **Document** your infrastructure
* **Reason** about relationships between resources, and evaluate changes to them.

<img src="doc/blastradius-interactive.png">

* **Interact** with this diagram (and many others) [here](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/).

# Quickstart

Install *Blast Radius* with pip, and *Graphviz* through your system's package manager.

````bash
[...]$ pip3 install BlastRadius
[...]$ brew install graphviz
````

Point *Blast Radius* at an `init-ed` *Terraform* project, and connect with your browser.

```bash
[...]$ blast-radius --serve /path/to/terraform-project
* Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
```
## Docker
*Alternatively*, you can launch *Blast Radius* in a docker container. (In this example, the current working directory contains a *Terraform* project.)

```bash
[...]$ docker run --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN -it --rm -p 5000:5000 -v $(pwd):/workdir:ro 28mm/blast-radius
```

*Please note*: because terraform saves module links as _absolute_ paths in _.terraform/modules/<uuid>_ we mount the host's filesystem read-only and force terraform to update the modules path at start. This way we don't interfere with the real project. Thus docker has to be run with the `--cap-add=SYS_ADMIN` flag to use the [overlayFS](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Overlay_filesystem) see [Docker's documentation](https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/run/#runtime-privilege-and-linux-capabilities).

*Additional note*:
If you organised your terraform directories with stacks and modules, please call *Blast Radius* from the root directory and give the stack's directory as argument (plus the `--serve` argument).

```bash
[...]$ tree -d
/-- project
|-- modules
| |-- foo
| |-- bar
| `-- dead
`-- stacks
`-- beef
`-- .terraform

[...]$ cd project
docker run --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN -it --rm -p 5000:5000 -v $(pwd):/workdir:ro 28mm/blast-radius --serve stacks/beef
```
# Embedded Figures

You may wish to embed figures produced with *Blast Radius* in other documents. You will need the following:

1. an `svg` file and `json` document representing the graph and its layout.
2. `javascript` and `css` found in `.../blastradius/server/static`
3. a uniquely identified DOM element, where the `<svg>` should appear.

Further details available [here](doc/embedded.md).

# Implementation Details

*Blast Radius* uses the [*Graphviz*](http://graphviz.org/) package to layout graph diagrams, [*PyHCL*](https://github.com/virtuald/pyhcl) to parse [*Terraform*](https://www.terraform.io/) configurations, and [*d3.js*](https://d3js.org/) to implement interactive features and animations.

# Further Reading

The development of *Blast Radius* is documented in a series of [blog](https://28mm.github.io) posts:

* [part 1](https://28mm.github.io/notes/d3-terraform-graphs): motivations, d3 force-directed layouts vs. vanilla graphviz.
* [part 2](https://28mm.github.io/notes/d3-terraform-graphs-2): d3-enhanced graphviz layouts, meaningful coloration, animations.
* [part 3](https://28mm.github.io/notes/terraform-graphs-3): limiting horizontal sprawl, supporting modules.
* [part 4](https://28mm.github.io/notes/d3-terraform-graphs-4): search, pan/zoom, prune-to-selection, docker.

A catalog of example *Terraform* configurations, and their dependency graphs can be found [here](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/).

* [AWS two-tier architecture](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/examples/terraform-provider-aws/two-tier/)
* [AWS networking (featuring modules)](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/examples/terraform-provider-aws/networking/)
* [Google two-tier architecture](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/examples/terraform-provider-google/two-tier/)
* [Azure load-balancing with 2 vms](https://28mm.github.io/blast-radius-docs/examples/terraform-provider-azurem/2-vms-loadbalancer-lbrules/)

These examples are drawn primarily from the `examples/` directory distributed with various *Terraform* providers, and aren't necessarily ideal. Additional examples, particularly demonstrations of best-practices, or of multi-cloud configurations strongly desired.