[chef] client metadata copy -- cannot assign public key?

[Erik Hollensbe < >]

Has anyone tried this before? We have a small tool that does this:

        when 'client'
          dest = klass.json_create(source.to_hash)
          dest.save

Where klass is Chef::ApiClient and source and dest are related to different 
chef servers.

This doesn't work because the #save method in Chef::ApiClient doesn't 
transmit any keys by default, and so they are generated as the underlying 
REST interface doesn't supply them.

What also doesn't work is this:

r.post_rest("client", { :name => source.name, :admin => source.admin, 
:public_key => source.public_key})

Where r is a Chef::REST object (creating the client with the public_key 
pre-seeded)

In the former case it regenerates the public key (looked at the code; makes 
sense but cannot override that function). In the latter case it returns 403 
Forbidden.

All of my source dives have been against 0.10.9 so I'm sure we're running the 
latest functionality.

Is this a restriction on the chef server that I've overlooked, or am I doing 
something wrong here? And if it is a restriction, is there a good reason for 
it that I'm missing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Erik