[chef] "Just" register a Chef node ?

[o haya < >]

Hi,

Assuming the machine already:

- Has the Chef client software installed
- Has client.pem removed
- Has client.rb with "node_name" being empty

Does Chef provide a way/tool to remotely cause that machine to be registered 
as a Chef node (initiated from a centralized machine)?

This would be for both Windows-based and Linux (CENTOS-/Redhat-) based 
machines.

I know that we can do "knife bootstrap", but in our case, we don't want to 
push the Chef client software to the node machines, but rather want to 
pre-provision the node machines with the Chef client software and just be 
able to cause the node machines to register as Chef nodes.  Something like 
having a "knife bootstrap", but where the bootstrap process would not include 
pushing the Chef client software to the node machine(s), would be perfect.

Thanks,
Jim