[chef] RE: knife setup problem

[Eric Hankins < >]

Hi Gilles,

I think the problem is that the -f flag for that command specifies where to 
put the key file belonging to the client that you just created when it's 
done. So your configuration says "use ~/.chef/gilles.pem to authenticate" but 
the file doesn't exist yet. For an initial user creation you need to use the 
validation key, but it doesn't do that by default. When I create a new knife 
user, here is the command I use:

knife client create billybob -f path/to/save/billybob.pem -u chef-validator 
-k path/to/validation.pem

So the -u says "run this command as this user" and the -k says "and use this 
key to sign the request". It looks like you have the validation.pem already 
so I think if you pass that in, you should be set. One thing to remember is 
that you probably want to set your knife user to be an admin. You can do this 
by editing the JSON that pops up, or by specifying --admin as an option to 
the command. You could even pass --no-editor to create an admin user without 
popping up EDITOR.

Hope that fixes things for you!

-- Eric



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gilles Devaux 
> [mailto:
 
> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 5:24 PM
> To: 
> 
 
> Subject: [chef] knife setup problem
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to setup knife but I run in a 'cannot read .pem file'
>
> The first thing I'm trying to do is to get a API Key for knife:
>
> gilles:.chef gilles$ knife client create gilles -f ~/.chef/gilles.pem -l 
> debug
> ERROR: Failed to read the private key /Users/gilles/.chef/gilles.pem:
> #<Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory - 
> /Users/gilles/.chef/gilles.pem>,
> /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.8.4/lib/chef/rest.rb:60:in
> `read'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.8.4/lib/chef/rest.rb:60:in
> `load_signing_key'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/rest.rb:49:in
> `initialize'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/api_client.rb:231:in
> `new'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.8.4/lib/chef/api_client.rb:231:in
> `save'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/knife/client_create.rb:47:in
> `run'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/application/knife.rb:110:in
> `run'/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/bin/knife:26/usr/bin/knife:19:in
> `load'/usr/bin/knife:19
> /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.8.4/lib/chef/rest.rb:63:in
> `load_signing_key': I cannot read /Users/gilles/.chef/gilles.pem, which you
> told me to use to sign requests!
> (Chef::Exceptions::PrivateKeyMissing)
>        from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.8.4/lib/chef/rest.rb:49:in
> `initialize'
>        from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/api_client.rb:231:in
> `new'
>        from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/api_client.rb:231:in
> `save'
>        from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/knife/client_create.rb:47:in
> `run'
>        from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-
> 0.8.4/lib/chef/application/knife.rb:110:in
> `run'
>        from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.8.4/bin/knife:26
>        from /usr/bin/knife:19:in `load'
>        from /usr/bin/knife:19
>
> The command is prompting me with
> {
>  "public_key": null,
>  "name": "gilles",
>  "json_class": "Chef::ApiClient",
>  "admin": false,
>  "chef_type": "client"
> }
>
> -> I don't really know what to set here, I tried different input for
> public_key with the same result.
>
> This is my knife.rb file
>  log_level                :info
> log_location             STDOUT
> node_name                'gilles'
> client_key               '/Users/gilles/.chef/gilles.pem'
> validation_client_name   'chef-validator'
> validation_key           '/Users/gilles/.chef/validation.pem'
> chef_server_url          'http://chefserver:4000'
> cache_type               'BasicFile'
> cache_options( :path => '/Users/gilles/.chef/checksums' ) cookbook_path [
> '/Users/gilles/Sites/chef/cookbooks',
> '/Users/gilles/Sites/chef/site-cookbooks' ]
>
> the validation key is the one created during chef-server install and I can
> register chef-clients without problems.
>
> chef rubygem is 0.8.4
>
> Do I need to setup the dev box as a chef-client for knife to work?
>
> Any other idea?
>
> Thanks
>
> --Gilles

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