knife-client(1) on Linux
The text ad59c018f76a, as Debian 8 (Jessie) shipped it.
The man page for the knife client subcommand. When a node runs the chef-client for the first time, it generally does not yet have an API client identity, and so it cannot make authenticated requests to the server. This is where the validation client---known as the chef-validator---comes in. When the chef-client runs, it checks if it has a client key. If the client key does not exist, it then attempts to borrow the identity of the chef-validator to register itself with the server. In order to register with the server, the private key for the chef-validator needs to be copied to the host and placed in /etc/chef/validation.pem. Once the chef-client has registered itself with the server, it no longer uses the validation client for anything. It is recommended that you delete the private key for the chef-validator from the host after the host has registered or use the delete_validation recipe that can be found in the chef-client cookbook (https://github.com/opscode-cookbooks/chef-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 server by any entity that uses the Chef Server API, such as the chef-client and Knife.
Flags it lists
-
--chef-zero-port -
--config -
--defaults -
--disable-editing -
--editor -
--environment -
--format -
--help -
--key -
--local-mode -
--print-after -
--server-url -
--user -
--verbose -
--version -
--yes -
-E -
-F -
-V -
-c -
-d -
-e -
-h -
-k -
-s -
-u -
-v -
-y -
-z