# Knife bootstrap issue

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife-bootstrap-issue/10086>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [December 19, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife-bootstrap-issue/10086 "2016-12-19T15:39:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rmm66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@rmm66](https://discourse.chef.io/u/rmm66)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife-bootstrap-issue/10086/1 "2016-12-19T15:39:03Z")

</div>

So for whatever reason, knife is putting a ‘?’ in front of the hostname. check it out.

```
user@host MINGW64 ~/gitRepos/chef-repo (master)
$ knife bootstrap <hostname_redacted> --ssh-user myuser --sudo --identity-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa -N <hostname_redacted> --run-list 'recipe[ori-cookbook-newrelic]'
Creating new client for <hostname_redacted>
Creating new node for <hostname_redacted>
Connecting to ?<hostname_redacted>
ERROR: Network Error: getaddrinfo: No such host is known.
Check your knife configuration and network settings

user@host MINGW64 ~/gitRepos/chef-repo (master)
$ knife bootstrap <hostname_redacted> --ssh-user myuser--sudo --identity-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa --node-name <hostname_redacted> --run-list 'recipe[ori-cookbook-newrelic]'
Node <hostname_redacted> exists, overwrite it? (Y/N) Y
Client <hostname_redacted> exists, overwrite it? (Y/N) Y
Creating new client for <hostname_redacted>
Creating new node for <hostname_redacted>
Connecting to ?<hostname_redacted>
ERROR: Network Error: getaddrinfo: No such host is known.
Check your knife configuration and network settings

user@host MINGW64 ~/gitRepos/chef-repo (master)
$ knife bootstrap <IP_address_redacted> --ssh-user myuser--sudo --identity-file ~/.ssh/id_rsa --node-name <hostname_redacted> --run-list 'recipe[ori-cookbook-newrelic]'
Node <hostname_redacted> exists, overwrite it? (Y/N) Y
Client <hostname_redacted> exists, overwrite it? (Y/N) y
Creating new client for <hostname_redacted>
Creating new node for <hostname_redacted>
Connecting to ?<IP_address_redacted>
ERROR: Network Error: getaddrinfo: No such host is known.
Check your knife configuration and network settings

```

This is a new node. So i’m not sure what’s going on here. And it just bootstrapped a another node right before this one.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![okram999](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/okram999/32/1083_2.png) [@okram999](https://discourse.chef.io/u/okram999)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife-bootstrap-issue/10086/2 "2016-12-19T19:24:15Z")

</div>

Copy and paste the knife bootstrap command from the terminal on to a notepad/text editor and see if you can catch a foreign character over there.

BTW, try out the ssh config file to avoid using specifying your ssh keys. [here](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-custom-connection-options-for-your-ssh-client)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rmm66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@rmm66](https://discourse.chef.io/u/rmm66)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2016, 11:05pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife-bootstrap-issue/10086/3 "2016-12-19T23:05:34Z")

</div>

that was it. thanks!