knife user

The knife user subcommand is used to manage the list of users and their associated RSA public key-pairs.

create

Use the create argument to create a user. This process will generate an RSA key pair for the named user. The public key will be stored on the Chef server and the private key will be displayed on STDOUT or written to a named file.

• For the user, the private key should be copied to the system as /etc/chef/client.pem.
• For knife, the private key is typically copied to ~/.chef/client_name.pem and referenced in the knife.rb configuration file.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife user create USER_NAME (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-a, --admin

Create a client as an admin client. This is required for any user to access Open Source Chef as an administrator. This option only works when used with the open source Chef server and will have no effect when used with Enterprise Chef or Chef server 12.x.

-f FILE_NAME, --file FILE_NAME

Save a private key to the specified file name.

-p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD

The user password.

--user-key FILE_NAME

The path to a file that contains the public key. If this option is not specified, the Chef server will generate a public/private key pair.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Create a user

$ knife user create "Radio Birdman" -f /keys/user_name

delete

Use the delete argument to delete a registered user.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife user delete USER_NAME

Options

This command does not have any specific options.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Delete a user

$ knife user delete "Steve Danno"

edit

Use the edit argument to edit the details of a user. When this argument is run, knife will open $EDITOR. When finished, knife will update the Chef server with those changes.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife user edit USER_NAME

Options

This command does not have any specific options.

Examples

None.

list

Use the list argument to view a list of registered users.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife user list (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-w, --with-uri

Show the corresponding URIs.

Examples

None.

reregister

Use the reregister argument to regenerate an RSA key pair for a user. The public key will be stored on the Chef server and the private key will be displayed on STDOUT or written to a named file.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife user reregister USER_NAME (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-f FILE_NAME, --file FILE_NAME

Save a private key to the specified file name.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Regenerate the RSA key-pair

$ knife user reregister "Robert Younger"

show

Use the show argument to show the details of a user.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife user show USER_NAME (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-a ATTR, --attribute ATTR

The attribute (or attributes) to show.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Show user data

To view a user named Dennis Teck, enter:

$ knife user show "Dennis Teck"

to return something like:

chef_type:   user
json_class:  Chef::User
name:        Dennis Teck
public_key:

Show user data as JSON

To view information in JSON format, use the -F common option as part of the command like this:

$ knife user show "Dennis Teck" -F json

(Other formats available include text, yaml, and pp, e.g. -F yaml for YAML.)