# Initial knife setup

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/initial-knife-setup/4385>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [August 30, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/initial-knife-setup/4385 "2013-08-30T18:26:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tim\_Dunphy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/tim_dunphy/32/410_2.png) [@Tim\_Dunphy](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Tim_Dunphy)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/initial-knife-setup/4385/1 "2013-08-30T18:26:01Z")

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hello list,

Forgive my ignorance but I am new to chef.

I’m attempting to setup a knife client against a chef 10 (open source ).  
But when I run the following commands I get the following errors:

root@chef:~] #knife configure --initial  
Overwrite /root/.chef/knife.rb? (Y/N) Y  
Please enter the chef server URL: [[http://chef.jokefire.com:4000](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000)]  
Please enter a name for the new user: [root] jf-admin  
Please enter the existing admin name: [admin] chef-webui  
Please enter the location of the existing admin’s private key:  
[/etc/chef/admin.pem] /etc/chef/webui.pem  
Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator]  
Please enter the location of the validation key: [/etc/chef/validation.pem]  
Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank):  
/root/chef/chef-repo  
Creating initial API user…  
Please enter a password for the new user:  
ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users),  
retrying 1/5 in 4s  
ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users),  
retrying 2/5 in 5s  
ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users),  
retrying 3/5 in 13s  
ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users),  
retrying 4/5 in 23s  
ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users),  
retrying 5/5 in 48s  
ERROR: internal server error  
Response: undefined method `name’ for nil:NilClass

Can someone point me in the right direction?

## thanks tim

GPG me!!

gpg --keyserver [pool.sks-keyservers.net](http://pool.sks-keyservers.net) --recv-keys F186197B

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kallistec](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/kallistec/32/23_2.png) [@kallistec](https://discourse.chef.io/u/kallistec)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/initial-knife-setup/4385/2 "2013-08-30T20:37:29Z")

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On Friday, August 30, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Tim Dunphy wrote:

> hello list,
> 
> Forgive my ignorance but I am new to chef.
> 
> I'm attempting to setup a knife client against a chef 10 (open source ). But when I run the following commands I get the following errors:
> 
> root@chef:~] #knife configure --initial  
> Overwrite /root/.chef/knife.rb? (Y/N) Y  
> Please enter the chef server URL: [[http://chef.jokefire.com:4000](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000)]  
> Please enter a name for the new user: [root] jf-admin  
> Please enter the existing admin name: [admin] chef-webui  
> Please enter the location of the existing admin's private key: [/etc/chef/admin.pem] /etc/chef/webui.pem  
> Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator]  
> Please enter the location of the validation key: [/etc/chef/validation.pem]  
> Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank): /root/chef/chef-repo  
> Creating initial API user...  
> Please enter a password for the new user:  
> ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users), retrying 1/5 in 4s  
> ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users), retrying 2/5 in 5s  
> ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users), retrying 3/5 in 13s  
> ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users), retrying 4/5 in 23s  
> ERROR: Server returned error for [http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users](http://chef.jokefire.com:4000/users), retrying 5/5 in 48s  
> ERROR: internal server error  
> Response: undefined method `name' for nil:NilClass
> 
> Can someone point me in the right direction?
> 
> thanks  
> tim
> 
> --  
> GPG me!!
> 
> gpg --keyserver [pool.sks-keyservers.net](http://pool.sks-keyservers.net) ([http://pool.sks-keyservers.net](http://pool.sks-keyservers.net)) --recv-keys F186197B

While all of the operations you need to do day-to-day will work when using knife from Chef 11.x against a 10.x server, this initial setup wizard assumes you're on the same major version.

Is there a particular reason you're using Chef 10.x server?

In any case if starting over with (or migrating to) Chef 11 on the server isn't an option for you, you can either downgrade knife to Chef 10.26, or manually create a "client"[1] by running `knife client create YOURNAME` and giving the flags:

-k /path/to/admin/key.pem (for Chef 10, use the webui.pem key)  
-u chef-webui (name of the existing admin client)  
-a (makes the new client an admin)  
-f /path/to/new/key.pem (write out your new client key to a file)

You might also have to pass in the server URL (-s option).

--  
Daniel DeLeo

1. "client" here means a database entry representing a person or machine who/that is authorized to access the chef server. In Chef 10, a "user" is a database entry representing a person who can access the webui, but API access is only for clients. In Chef 11, a "user" has both a password and an API key, so you use the same "user" identity for both API and webui access.