Try adding a role to your Chef Server and put the node in the role. You can specify some role default attributes, such as chef_client interval/splay that control how often the chef-client runs on the node. Here's an example role file:
{
"name": "web",
"description": "Web server role.",
"json_class": "Chef::Role",
"default_attributes": {
"chef_client": {
"interval": 300,
"splay": 60
}
},
"override_attributes": {
},
"chef_type": "role",
"run_list": ["recipe[chef-client::default]",
"recipe[chef-client::delete_validation]"
],
"env_run_lists": {
}
}