First you must sync local date and time with that on the target system. Especially if you run in a development environment and did not do so on installation (chef protects agains replay attacks and needs a correct time setting)
Get your local time
echo \'date -us \"`date -u "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"`\"\'
'date -us "2012-10-10 18:07"'
and set it on all nodes (from the crowbar admin machine as root)
knife ssh node:* -- 'date -us "2012-10-10 18:07"'
Next copy your /etc/chef/webui.pem file from the admin machine to .chef/webui.pem
Copy the template knife.rb file and set the server url to the correct value
cp .chef/knife.rb.example .chef/knife.rb
copy the template .rvmrc in place and trust it (or install the corresponding ruby)
cp dot-rvmrc .rvmrc
rvm rvmrc trust .
rvm rvmrc load
install chef with the Gemfile
bundle install
finally you can work with knife from your local maschine:
$ knife status
6 minutes ago, admin.v1.cr0wbar.de, admin.v1.cr0wbar.de, 10.124.0.10, ubuntu 12.04.
4 minutes ago, dc0-ff-ee-00-00-02.v1.cr0wbar.de, dc0-ff-ee-00-00-02.v1.cr0wbar.de, 10.124.3.2, ubuntu 12.04.
4 minutes ago, dc0-ff-ee-00-00-01.v1.cr0wbar.de, dc0-ff-ee-00-00-01.v1.cr0wbar.de, 10.124.3.3, ubuntu 12.04.
3 minutes ago, dc0-ff-ee-00-00-03.v1.cr0wbar.de, dc0-ff-ee-00-00-03.v1.cr0wbar.de, 10.124.3.1, ubuntu 12.04.