# Chef HA User Creation

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-ha-user-creation/17139>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [May 18, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-ha-user-creation/17139 "2020-05-18T22:24:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sc2bigjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@sc2bigjoe](https://discourse.chef.io/u/sc2bigjoe)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 10:24pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-ha-user-creation/17139/1 "2020-05-18T22:24:02Z")

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Hello

I have followed the instructions for setting up Chef HA with 3 backend servers and single frontend here [https://docs.chef.io/install\_server\_ha/](https://docs.chef.io/install_server_ha/) . The healthcheck is passing from the frontend and I can connect to postgresql database from frontend using the credentials generated on backend. However, I cannot seem to create any users for chef with chef-server-ctl user-create. I get an error

`ERROR: Failed to authenticate to https://127.0.0.1:443 as pivotal with key /tmp/latovip20200518-26180-3lgik5 Response: Failed to authenticate as 'pivotal'. Ensure that your node_name and client key are correct.`

When I look at the users table in the backend it is empty. It looks like the chef-server-ctl reconfigure is working from the frontend though. Any ideas on what I am missing? Do I need to create the first user manually?

Thanks for the help

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**Author:** ![sc2bigjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@sc2bigjoe](https://discourse.chef.io/u/sc2bigjoe)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-ha-user-creation/17139/2 "2020-05-19T20:58:13Z")

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If anyone else runs into this issue. I ran through the setup again and realized I had a problem with DNS pointing to the incorrect servers.