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Managing Authentication in Oracle® Solaris 11.4

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Updated: November 2020
 
 

Using pcsclite for Smart Cards

PC/SC Lite provides a Windows SCard interface for communicating with smart cards and readers. It uses the same winscard API as the Windows SCard. PC/SC Lite also uses the libccid library as its CCID-compliant smartcard reader driver. The default configuration of the pcsclite library (PC/SC Lite) is typically sufficient for smart card authentication.

In Oracle Solaris, the library and daemon are in the pkg://library/security/pcsc/pcsclite package. The version of the library is in the Version field of the package information:

$ pkg info pcsclite
     Name: library/security/pcsc/pcsclite
  Summary: Provides smart card services using the SCard API (PC/SC)
...
  Version: version

Oracle Solaris uses both the PC/SC Lite client (libpcsclite.so) and the PC/SC Lite server daemon (pcscd) for smart card authentication. PC/SC Lite is a service in Oracle Solaris, so you administer pcscd by using the svcadm command.

After installation of the smartcard group package, the PC/SC daemon remains disabled. After configuring the supporting software for smart cards, you will manually enable the pcsc service in Enabling an Oracle Solaris System for Smart Card Login.