[Yandex Cloud documentation](../../index.md) > [Yandex Managed Service for YDB](../index.md) > Using YDB via Terraform > Creating configuration files and connecting to YDB

# Creating configuration files and connecting to YDB

{% note warning %}

For this tutorial, you need to install a Terraform provider for YDB. If you do not have a provider for YDB installed, see [Installing and configuring Terraform and the YDB provider](install.md).

{% endnote %}

Create a directory where you will place your Terraform configuration files for YDB, then create a file named `main.tf.`, e.g.:
```bash
mkdir ydb_terraform && cd ydb_terraform
touch main.tf
```

## Provider section properties {#tproviders_description}

Add the following section at the beginning of the file and save this file:

```tf
terraform {
  required_providers {
    yandex = {
      source = "yandex-cloud/yandex"
    }
  }
  required_version = ">= 0.13"
}

provider "yandex" {
  zone = "ru-central1-a" # Default availability zone
}
```

Here is the description of the provider section fields:
* `source`: Provider's global [source address](https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/providers/requirements#source-addresses).
* `required_version`: Minimum Terraform version the provider is compatible with.
* `provider`: Provider name.
* `zone`: Default [availability zone](../../overview/concepts/geo-scope.md) for all your cloud resources.

To initialize the provider, run `terraform init` in the directory with the configuration files. In the terminal, you will see a message about successful installation. Now that Terraform is installed and set up, you can start creating a [serverless](serverless-database.md) or [dedicated](dedicated-database.md) database.