knife client

The knife client subcommand is used to manage an API client list and their associated RSA public key-pairs. This allows authentication requests to be made to the Chef server by any entity that uses the Chef server API, such as the chef-client and knife.

bulk delete

Use the bulk delete argument to delete any API client that matches a pattern defined by a regular expression. The regular expression must be within quotes and not be surrounded by forward slashes (/).

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client bulk delete REGEX

Options

This argument has the following options:

-D, --delete-validators

Force the deletion of the client when it is also a chef-validator.

Examples

None.

create

Use the create argument to create a new API client. This process will generate an RSA key pair for the named API client. 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 chef-client, 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 client create CLIENT_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, --file FILE

Save a private key to the specified file name.

-k, --prevent-keygen

Create a user without a public key. This key may be managed later by using the knife user key subcommands.

Note

This option is valid only with Chef server API, version 1.0, which was released with Chef server 12.1. If this option or the --user-key option are not passed in the command, the Chef server will create a user with a public key named default and will return the private key. For the Chef server versions earlier than 12.1, this option will not work; a public key is always generated unless --user-key is passed in the command.

-p FILE, --public-key FILE

The path to a file that contains the public key. This option may not be passed in the same command with --prevent-keygen. When using Open Source Chef a default key is generated if this option is not passed in the command. For Chef server version 12.x, see the --prevent-keygen option.

--validator

Create the client as the chef-validator. Default value: true.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Create an admin client

To create a chef-client that can access the Chef server API as an administrator—sometimes referred to as an “API chef-client”—with the name “exampleorg” and save its private key to a file, enter:

$ knife client create exampleorg -a -f "/etc/chef/client.pem"

Create an admin client for Enterprise Chef

When running the create argument, be sure to omit the -a option:

$ knife client create exampleorg -f "/etc/chef/client.pem"

delete

Use the delete argument to delete a registered API client.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client delete CLIENT_NAME

Options

This argument has the following options:

-D, --delete-validators

Force the deletion of the client when it is also a chef-validator.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Delete a client

To delete a client with the name “client_foo”, enter:

$ knife client delete client_foo

Type Y to confirm a deletion.

edit

Use the edit argument to edit the details of a registered API client. When this argument is run, knife will open $EDITOR to enable editing of the admin attribute. (None of the other attributes should be changed using this argument.) When finished, knife will update the Chef server with those changes.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client edit CLIENT_NAME

Options

This command does not have any specific options.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Edit a client

To edit a client with the name “exampleorg”, enter:

$ knife client edit exampleorg

key create

Use the key create argument to create a public key.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client key create CLIENT_NAME (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-e DATE, --expiration-date DATE

The expiration date for the public key, specified as an ISO 8601 formatted string: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ. If this option is not specified, the public key will not have an expiration date. For example: 2013-12-24T21:00:00Z.

-f FILE, --file FILE

Save a private key to the specified file name. If the --public-key option is not specified the Chef server will generate a private key.

-k NAME, --key-name NAME

The name of the public key.

-p FILE_NAME, --public-key FILE_NAME

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

Examples

None.

key delete

Use the key delete argument to delete a public key.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client key delete CLIENT_NAME KEY_NAME

Examples

None.

key edit

Use the key edit argument to modify or rename a public key.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client key edit CLIENT_NAME KEY_NAME (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-c, --create-key

Generate a new public/private key pair and replace an existing public key with the newly-generated public key. To replace the public key with an existing public key, use --public-key instead.

-e DATE, --expiration-date DATE

The expiration date for the public key, specified as an ISO 8601 formatted string: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ. If this option is not specified, the public key will not have an expiration date. For example: 2013-12-24T21:00:00Z.

-f FILE, --file FILE

Save a private key to the specified file name. If the --public-key option is not specified the Chef server will generate a private key.

-k NAME, --key-name NAME

The name of the public key.

-p FILE_NAME, --public-key FILE_NAME

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

Examples

None.

key list

Use the key list argument to view a list of public keys for the named client.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client key list CLIENT_NAME (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-e, --only-expired

Show a list of public keys that have expired.

-n, --only-non-expired

Show a list of public keys that have not expired.

-w, --with-details

Show a list of public keys, including URIs and expiration status.

Examples

None.

key show

Use the key show argument to view details for a specific public key.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client key show CLIENT_NAME KEY_NAME

Examples

None.

list

Use the list argument to view a list of registered API client.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client list (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-w, --with-uri

Show the corresponding URIs.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

View a list of clients

To verify the API client list for the Chef server, enter:

$ knife client list

to return something similar to:

exampleorg
i-12345678
rs-123456

To verify that an API client can authenticate to the Chef server correctly, try getting a list of clients using -u and -k options to specify its name and private key:

$ knife client list -u ORGNAME -k .chef/ORGNAME.pem

reregister

Use the reregister argument to regenerate an RSA key pair for an API client. 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 client reregister CLIENT_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:

Re-register a client

To re-register the RSA key pair for a client named “testclient” and save it to a file named “rsa_key”, enter:

$ knife client reregister testclient -f rsa_key

show

Use the show argument to show the details of an API client.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife client show CLIENT_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 clients

To view a client named “testclient”, enter:

$ knife client show testclient

to return something like:

admin:       false
chef_type:   client
json_class:  Chef::ApiClient
name:        testclient
public_key:

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

$ knife client show devops -F json

Other formats available include text, yaml, and pp.