What is a possible solution when a certificate retrieved from the master does not match the agent's private key?

When a certificate retrieved from the master does not match the agent's private key, the agent essentially cannot authenticate to the Puppet master. One effective solution in this situation is to clean the certificate using the command to remove any cached certificate information related to the agent.

Running the command to clean the certificate removes the certificate and key from the Puppet master’s certificate authority (CA) and allows the agent to re-request a new certificate. This means that after cleaning the certificate, the agent can generate a new key pair and subsequently request a new certificate from the Puppet master, which should match the new private key.

Cleaning the certificate is important because it helps resolve any mismatches between the agent’s private key and the certificate in the master’s CA, allowing the authentication process to proceed smoothly during the next run of the puppet agent. Consequently, this option effectively addresses the situation of mismatched certificates and private keys.