[chef] Vagrant and Chef client and server

[< >]

We have just started working with Chef and are still trying to figure it out.
We have successfully used Vagrant to created both a Chef server VM and a Chef
client VM that connects to the server. We used Vagrantfiles that we found on
the web that use the chef-server and chef-client cookbooks.

However, the client creation and connection to the server only works if the
client's node does not exist on the server - if chef-client can create the 
node
on the server it works fine. But, we would like to create the node on the
server first, and populate a run list for it, before creating the VM with
Vagrant. The error I get when I try it is appended.

Does anyone know how to fix this?
Is there a better way to do it? By maybe doing less with vagrant and then 
using
"knife bootstrap"?

Thanks,
Jim

[2013-01-15T22:20:08+00:00] INFO: *** Chef 10.14.2 ***
[2013-01-15T22:20:08+00:00] INFO: Client key /etc/chef/client.pem is not
present - registering
[2013-01-15T22:20:08+00:00] INFO: HTTP Request Returned 409 Conflict: Client
already exists
[2013-01-15T22:20:08+00:00] INFO: HTTP Request Returned 403 Forbidden: You are
not allowed to take this action.

================================================================================
Chef encountered an error attempting to create the client "chefClient1"
================================================================================

Authorization Error:
--------------------
Your validation client is not authorized to create the client for this node
(HTTP 403).

Possible Causes:
----------------
* There may already be a client named "chefClient1"
* Your validation client (chef-validator) may have misconfigured authorization
permissions.
[2013-01-15T22:20:08+00:00] FATAL: Stacktrace dumped to
/srv/chef/file_store/chef-stacktrace.out
[2013-01-15T22:20:08+00:00] FATAL: Net::HTTPServerException: 403 "Forbidden"
The following SSH command responded with a non-zero exit status.
Vagrant assumes that this means the command failed!

chef-client -c /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/client.rb -j /tmp/vagrant-chef-1/dna.json