Add Terraform VM start/stop actions for cost management during challenges

[codycodes]

I'd like to add Azure (and potentially AWS & GCP) VM start/stop actions using Terraform 1.14's new actions feature to help with cost management. This would give users an additional mechanism to pause VMs without losing progress while avoiding ongoing compute costs. Would this type of enhancement align with the project goals?

Use case: I'm working through challenges in my free time and often need to pause between sessions to avoid ongoing VM costs. Currently this requires switching between Terraform and using the Azure portal or figuring out parameters to use with the az CLI, adding friction to the workflow. Having VM lifecycle management within the same Terraform toolchain would streamline the experience and teach real-world cost optimization patterns.

I've already implemented this locally for Azure and would be happy to contribute if there's interest.

For reference, here's what the terraform command could look like:

terraform apply -invoke=action.azurerm_virtual_machine_power.ctf_power_off -var-file=main.tfvars -auto-approve

Thanks for your consideration & appreciate the ctfs: I'm about halfway through and having lots of fun learning more Linux 🐧

[rishabkumar7]

@codycodes good idea, feel free to contribute by opening a PR for Azure and potentially AWS and GCP. :)

[madebygps]

Hi @codycodes thank you for the suggestion :)

Just a clarification. Is this to persist the progress of the challenges or to make stopping the VM easier?

[codycodes]

Thank you guys for a quick response!

@madebygps the latter: this is to control the power state of the VM by providing a shortcut via Terraform (see HashiCorp's docs on invoke-actions).

[madebygps]

@codycodes awesome. Looking forward to your contribution. Just make sure to update your fork first, I made several changes in the last few days :)

[madebygps]

@codycodes I have also just added a contributors guide https://github.com/learntocloud/linux-ctfs/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md