# Creating an azure storage account for static site hosting using Terraform

Azure Storage accounts have the capability of hosting static sites. No need for web servers and re-write rules to serve static sites like Single Page Apps. Just drop the static files into Azure Storage and that’s it.

Here’s a quick guide on how to provision an Azure Storage account with static site hosting enabled.

Using Terraform, first declare the provider block. Due to [a bug](https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-azurerm/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#210-march-11-2020) in the provider related to static site hosting, it’s best that you try to use version `2.2.0` or greater.

      
    provider "azurerm" {
      version = "~>2.2.0"
      features {}
    }
    

Then, I’ll assume you have some variables like this.

    variable "app_name" {
      type = string
    }
    
    variable "location" {
      type = string
    }
    
    variable "environment" {
      type = string
    }
    
    locals {
      storage_account_name = "st${var.app_name}${var.environment}"
    }
    

Lastly, what’s next is just the [Azure Storage resource](https://www.terraform.io/docs/providers/azurerm/r/storage_account.html#account_kind).

    resource "azurerm_storage_account" "storage_account" {
      name                = local.storage_account_name
      resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.resource_group.name
    
      location                 = var.location
      account_tier             = "Standard"
      account_replication_type = "LRS"
      account_kind             = "StorageV2"
    
      static_website {
        index_document = "index.html"
      }
    }
    

Notice how we enable static file hosting by declaring the `static_website` block. In this block, there are some other options like `index_document` and `error_404_document`. By setting `index_document`, Azure Storage will redirect requests to the index page. Otherwise, people would have to hit your URL at `/index.html` to see the website and would potentially make routes not work.

That’s it!

For those of you new to Azure Storage accounts with static site hosting, it’s essentially a storage account with a container named `$web`. This `$web` container will be where the static site is hosted from. Simply, upload your site to this location and you’re done.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1637639675723/jg2_FnxhJ.jpeg)

  
  
  

The URL of your website will be under the Static website blade in Azure.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1637639677281/T9CobmwZ-.jpeg)