Troubleshooting: authentication to the system console or Gnome Desktop Manager of an IdM host with a SmartCard

IdM allows to authenticate to an IdM enrolled-host by providing a SmartCard certificate instead of a username/password. The below steps are based on system console authentication but the process is similar when using Gnome desktop  login authentication.

When the authentication fails, the issue usually comes from a wrong configuration of the IdM system for SmartCard, or of PKINIT.

 

Configuration of the IdM host for SmartCard authentication

If the console does not even prompt for the SmartCard PIN, chances are high that the system was not properly configured for SmartCard authentication.

SSSD configuration for smart card

Check that /etc/sssd.conf contains

[pam]
pam_cert_auth = True

If you need to update the file, do not forget to restart sssd with

root@ipaclient$ systemctl restart sssd

 

SmartCard CA must be trusted

Check that the SmartCard CA is trusted in the /etc/pki/nssdb database:

root@ipaclient$ certutil -L -d /etc/pki/nssdb/

Certificate Nickname Trust Attributes     SSL,S/MIME,JAR/XPI

SmartCardCA                               CT,C,C

If the CA is not present, add it using:

root@ipaclient$ certutil -A -d /etc/pki/nssdb -n SmartCardCA -t CT,C,C -i ca.pem

 

IdM host PKCS#11 module

Check that the IdM host is properly configured for Smart Cards. The opensc package must be installed, the the SmartCard daemon must be running, and the PKCS#11 module must be loaded

root@ipaclient$ dnf install opensc
root@ipaclient$ systemctl start pcscd.service pcscd.socket
root@ipaclient$ modutil -dbdir /etc/pki/nssdb -add "OpenSC" -libfile /usr/lib64/opensc-pkcs11.so

 

Configuration for PKINIT

If the console prompts for the SmartCard PIN but displays

ipaclient login: demosc1
Pin for PIV Card:
Login incorrect

it is possible that the authentication fails trying to acquire a Kerberos ticket with PKINIT. In this case, login with username/password to the IdM host and try to manually perform kinit in order to get more information:

root@ipaclient$ kinit -X X509_user_identity='PKCS11:opensc-pkcs11.so' demosc1

 

If  the command outputs the following:

kinit: Pre-authentication failed: Failed to verify own certificate (depth 1): self signed certificate in certificate chain while getting initial credentials

then check the content of /etc/krb5.conf on the IdM host. The realms section must contain a configuration for ipadomain with pkinit_anchors:

[realms]
 IPADOMAIN.COM = {
 pkinit_anchors = FILE:/var/lib/ipa-client/pki/kdc-ca-bundle.pem
 pkinit_pool = FILE:/var/lib/ipa-client/pki/ca-bundle.pem

}

The file defined in pkinit_anchors must exist, be readable and contain the certificate of the CA which signed the SmartCard certificate. If it is not the case, run the following commands on any IPA server:

root@ipaserver$ ipa-cacert-manage install -n SmartCardCA -t CT,C,C -p $DM_PWD ca.pem
root@ipaserver$ ipa-certupdate

And run the ipa-certupdate command on all IdM hosts in order to download the certificate.

If the kinit command output the following:

kinit: Certificate mismatch while getting initial credentials

check that the SmartCard certificate is associated to the username provided in the console (see mapping between a SmartCard certificate and an IdM user).

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