If there are no existing consumers on the client and try to create a consumer without user/pass it sends a request to the server with empty cert/key instead of username/password $ sudo pulp-client consumer create --id=testcon warning: this client is not registered; please register to continue error: operation failed: Invalid SSL Certificate $ sudo pulp-client consumer create --id=testcon warning: this client is not registered; please register to continue error: operation failed: Invalid SSL Certificate $ sudo pulp-client -u prad -p redhat consumer create --id=testcon warning: this client is not registered; please register to continue Successfully created consumer [ testcon ] If a cert/key is not found, the consumer create should exit if username/password is not present saying "Error: no consumer certificate and key found; please specify username and password to create a consumer" or something on similar lines..
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 679443 ***