1.6. Tools for managing smart cards and their contents

You can use many different tools to manage the keys and certificates stored on your smart cards. You can use these tools to do the following:

There are many tools that provide similar functionality but some work at different layers of your system. Smart cards are managed on multiple layers by multiple components. On the lower level, the operating system communicates with the smart card reader using the PC/SC protocol, and this communication is handled by the pcsc-lite daemon. The daemon forwards the commands received to the smart card reader typically over USB, which is handled by low-level CCID driver. The PC/SC low level communication is rarely seen on the application level. The main method in RHEL for applications to access smart cards is via a higher level application programming interface (API), the OASIS PKCS#11 API, which abstracts the card communication to specific commands that operate on cryptographic objects, for example, private keys. Smart card vendors provide a shared module, such as an .so file, which follows the PKCS#11 API and serves as a driver for the smart card.

You can use the following tools to manage your smart cards and their contents:

For more information about using these tools to troubleshoot issues with authenticating using a smart card, see Troubleshooting authentication with smart cards.