# Knife

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife/2007>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [August 4, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife/2007 "2011-08-04T00:15:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Brian\_Jakovich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/brian_jakovich/32/803_2.png) [@Brian\_Jakovich](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Brian_Jakovich)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife/2007/1 "2011-08-04T00:15:37Z")

</div>

I setup a chef server on my Centos 5.4 instance. Chef installed correctly  
and the web ui was up and running. I then created a user called knife and in  
the home directory of the knife user I created and in the home directory I  
made a .chef/ directory. I then did

knife configure -i

Entered in the information:

Please enter the chef server URL: [localhost:4000]

> Please enter a clientname for the new client: [root] knife  
> Please enter the existing admin clientname: [chef-webui]  
> Please enter the location of the existing admin client's private key:  
> [/etc/chef/webui.pem] .chef/webui.pem  
> Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator]  
> Please enter the location of the validation key: [/etc/chef/validation.pem]  
> .chef/validation.pem  
> Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank):\* [route to my  
> svn repository]\*  
> Creating initial API user...

I then ran

$ knife client list

ERROR: Chef::Exceptions::InvalidPrivateKey: The file

> /home/knife/.chef/knife.pem does not contain a correctly formatted private  
> key.  
> The key file should begin with '-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----' and end  
> with '-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----'

I don't host my svn repo on Github so I don't have a RSA private key....

Any help would be appreciated

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**Author:** ![andi\_abes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@andi\_abes](https://discourse.chef.io/u/andi_abes)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife/2007/2 "2011-08-04T03:57:27Z")

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You need a client private key to authenticate your client...  
You can use the webui.pem in /etc/chef or you'd have to create a client through the webui and save the private key that is reported when you first create the client.  
I'm guessing that your setup doesn't actually have a

> .chef/webui.pem

On Aug 3, 2011, at 8:15 PM, Brian Jakovich [b.jakovich@gmail.com](mailto:b.jakovich@gmail.com) wrote:

> I setup a chef server on my Centos 5.4 instance. Chef installed correctly and the web ui was up and running. I then created a user called knife and in the home directory of the knife user I created and in the home directory I made a .chef/ directory. I then did
> 
> knife configure -i
> 
> Entered in the information:
> 
> Please enter the chef server URL: [localhost:4000]  
> Please enter a clientname for the new client: [root] knife  
> Please enter the existing admin clientname: [chef-webui]  
> Please enter the location of the existing admin client's private key: [/etc/chef/webui.pem] .chef/webui.pem  
> Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator]  
> Please enter the location of the validation key: [/etc/chef/validation.pem] .chef/validation.pem  
> Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank): [route to my svn repository]  
> Creating initial API user.  
> I then ran
> 
> $ knife client list
> 
> ERROR: Chef::Exceptions::InvalidPrivateKey: The file /home/knife/.chef/knife.pem does not contain a correctly formatted private key.  
> The key file should begin with '-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----' and end with '-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----'
> 
> I don't host my svn repo on Github so I don't have a RSA private key....
> 
> Any help would be appreciated

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bryan\_McLellan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bryan_mclellan/32/81_2.png) [@Bryan\_McLellan](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Bryan_McLellan)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 2:11pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/knife/2007/3 "2011-08-04T14:11:43Z")

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On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Brian Jakovich [b.jakovich@gmail.com](mailto:b.jakovich@gmail.com) wrote:

> I don't host my svn repo on Github so I don't have a RSA private key....

Chef uses RSA keypairs to authenticate clients. Running 'knife  
configure -i' uses existing keypairs in /etc/chef created during  
server startup to authenticate to create an additional client, in your  
case named 'knife'. The private key is then saved to disk and the  
public key stored on the server.

> > $ knife client list
> > 
> > ERROR: Chef::Exceptions::InvalidPrivateKey: The file  
> > /home/knife/.chef/knife.pem does not contain a correctly formatted private  
> > key.  
> > The key file should begin with '-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----' and end  
> > with '-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----'

Is there any chance you ran this command more than once? Have you  
looked in /home/knife/.chef/knife.pem? Does it contain "nil"? There is  
a bug [1] where if a client already exists with that name, knife  
overwrites the pem file with "nil". If this is the case, create a new  
client with a different name and then use 'knife client delete knife'  
to delete the broken and unused one.

[1] [http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-2344](http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-2344)