The new client cannot write the certificate it gets from the server via user-data because the broker runs as "landscape" and /etc/landscape is owned by root:root:
2010-07-29 19:15:58,880 ERROR [MainThread] Got error while fetching meta-data: IOError(13, 'Permission denied')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/internet/defer.py", line 323, in _runCallbacks
self.result = callback(self.result, *args, **kw)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/landscape/broker/registration.py", line 196, in record_data
instance_data["ssl-ca-certificate"])
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/landscape/configuration.py", line 493, in store_public_key_data
key_file = open(key_filename, "w")
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/etc/landscape/client.conf.ssl_public_key'
# l /etc/landscape -d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Apr 28 16:14 /etc/landscape
Confirmed fixed.