Notice these errors. First error shows the API user of knife (root) failed to authenticate: # knife client list WARN: HTTP Request Returned 401 Unauthorized: Failed to authenticate! /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2101:in `error!': 401 "Unauthorized" (Net::HTTPServerException) from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/rest.rb:217:in `api_request' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/rest.rb:268:in `retriable_rest_request' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/rest.rb:198:in `api_request' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/rest.rb:101:in `get_rest' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/api_client.rb:185:in `list' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/knife/client_list.rb:35:in `run' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.6/lib/chef/application/knife.rb:115:in `run' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/...