knife proxy authentication methods to make changes on the Chef server on behalf of another user

gistfile1.txt

### Method 1 ###
$ knife role from file roles/windows_web.rb \
  --key .chef-test_user/test_user.pem \
  --user test_user

Benefits:
 * Uses standard knife subcomands
 * Out of the box
Caveats: 
 * Requires the users private keys on the jenkins machine. 
 * Requires user to exist on the server




### Method 2 ###
# Requires key from the Chef server: /etc/opscode/webui_priv.pem
$ knife raw \
  --method DELETE /organizations/eu_org/roles/linux_base \
  --key .chef/webui_priv.pem \
  --user test_user \
  --proxy-auth \
  --server-url https://ap-local-chef-server-12.opschef.tv

Benefits: 
 * Out of the box
 * Uses only the webui private key
Caveats: 
 * --proxy-auth available from knife 12.1.0+
 * Uses the raw subcomand for POST, PUT and DELETE API calls
 * Requires user to exist on the server





### Method 3 ###
# Requires key from the Chef server: /etc/opscode/webui_priv.pem
$ knife role from file roles/linux_base.rb \
  --key .chef/webui_priv.pem \
  --user test_user

Benefits: 
 * Uses standard knife subcomands
 * Uses only the webui private key
Caveats: 
 * Requires user to exist on the server
 * Not out of the box at the moment, requires patching basic_client.rb, diff here:
   https://gist.github.com/alexpop/227bd98afa21beb36256