[chef] setting up chef-server

[< >]

Following the guide to "installing chef on debian/ubuntu using packages" i 
came
across some issues. 

when trying to configure knife and creating a client for the chef-server
command line I got the following error.
  -- logged in as root -- 
$ knife configure --initial
Please enter the chef server URL: [http://beta.chef.xxxx.com:4000] ;
Please enter a clientname for the new client: [root]
Please enter the existing admin clientname: [chef-webui] 
Please enter the location of the existing admin client's private key:
[/etc/chef/webui.pem] 
Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator] 
Please enter the location of the validation key: [/etc/chef/validation.pem] 
Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank): 
Creating initial API user...
ERROR: Server returned error for
http://beta.chef.xxxx.com:4000/clients/root_admin, retrying 1/5 in 4s
ERROR: Server returned error for
http://beta.chef.xxxx.com:4000/clients/root_admin, retrying 2/5 in 6s
...

When I try
$ knife client list
Response:  Failed to authenticate. Ensure that your client key is valid.
  so i know that it's not creating a client.pem correctly

Here are my permissions http://pastebin.com/kVZTXM3d

Does anybody have any clue what's going wrong, or what I can do to fix it?
Thanks a lot.