Use CCID interface instead of CryptoTokenKit API

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Hi,

Is it possible for a macOS (or iOS/ipadOS) app to communicate with a CCID-compliant reader using the CCID interface (i.e., directly sending the PC_TO_RDR_* messages) instead of using the CryptoTokenKit API?

Apple's CCID driver (/System/Library/CryptoTokenKit/usbsmartcardreaderd.slotd) seems to support all the PC_TO_RDR and RDR_TO_PC messages: https://blog.apdu.fr/posts/2023/11/apple-own-ccid-driver-in-sonoma/#enable-my-ccid-driver

The background for this question is that we develop smartcard products and we'd like to use the finer grained settings provided by the CCID specification for testing/demo purposes.

Thank you.

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

10h

Is it possible for a macOS (or iOS/iPadOS) app to communicate with a CCID-compliant reader using the CCID interface (i.e., directly sending the PC_TO_RDR_* messages) instead of using the CryptoTokenKit API?

It depends on exactly what you're trying/willing to do:

If you specifically want a CCID "level" interface, then no, we don't really have an API for that.
If you're willing to send USB commands, then the IOUSBHost Framework can be used to interact directly with the device (this is the API our driver actually uses)*. Note that this might require using a codeless DEXT to prevent our implementation from claiming the device.

*The framework documentation says the framework is used to "Create host-mode user space drivers for USB devices", however, that's just a complicated way of saying “let apps directly send USB commands to devices".

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

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