you get this error if you run "chef-client" with out sudo. Because the key chef client trying to acess "/etc/chef/client.pem" has root ownership.



 Starting Chef Client, version 11.14.6

 [2014-09-05T11:28:19+00:00] WARN: Failed to read the private key /etc/chef/client.pem: #<Errno::EACCES: Permission denied - /etc/chef/client.pem>

 ================================================================================
Chef encountered an error attempting to create the client "node"
================================================================================

 Private Key Not Found:
----------------------
Your private key could not be loaded. If the key file exists, ensure that it is
readable by chef-client.

 Relevant Config Settings:
-------------------------
validation_key "/etc/chef/validation.pem"

 ubuntu@ip-172-31-12-86:/etc/chef$ ls -l /etc/chef/
total 20
-rw------- 1 root root 1675 Sep  5 11:22 client.pem

 So run it as sudo to avoid issue.

 ubuntu@ip-172-31-12-86:/etc/chef$ sudo chef-client

gil ...