ActivKey and VMware Workstation 7.1.4

[glaubner]

Hi !

I'm using Ubuntu 11.4 as the host with Workstation 7.1.4 and a Windows 7 (64Bit) guest.

I need to use the ActivIdentity USB key to connect to corporate VPN, but when I start the VPN connection code in Windows, after i mapped the virtual SIM to the guest, the system freeze at the point it tries to read from the USB key. Keyboard, Mouse.. all frozen. Unitil i unplug the USB key. After unplug all is un-frozen, but the application didn't get the info from the key. I tried to add the following line to the vmx (as this seems to fix the issue on 6.5.1 per other discussion in vmware community forum), but apparently it doesn't help in 7.1.4.

uhci.syncWriteback = "TRUE"
usb.generic.skipsetconfig = "TRUE"
usb.generic.allowCCID = "TRUE"

Any help appreciated !!

Thanks a lot

/g

[SSO201110141]

Hi,

I had the same problem and I just disabled USB 2.0 support on the VM.

Best regards

[glaubner]

Thanks SSO,

I gave i a try by removing

ehci.present = "TRUE"

from the vmx file. But no luck. Same behaviour.

/g

[glaubner]

I found this in vmware.log :

Worker#12| USB-CCID: SCardBeginTransaction on reader 'Activkey Sim 00 00' failed: SCARD_E_INVALID_VALUE(0x80100011).

Maybe that provides some indication ?

/g

[SSO201110141]

Hi.

Did you try changing the line from:

ehci.present = "TRUE"

to:

ehci.present = "FALSE"

instead of removing it?

Regards

[SSO201110141]

Hi.

I also have some packages like pcsc tools, coolkey and drivers installed... from command line what is the result from pcsc_scan command?

Regards

[glaubner]

Removing and setting it to FALSE : Grant both the same behaviour : Freeze upon stick read, until stick removal

/g

[glaubner]

Output of sudo pcsc_scan

PC/SC device scanner
V 1.4.17 (c) 2001-2009, Ludovic Rousseau <ludovic.rousseau@free.fr>
Compiled with PC/SC lite version: 1.5.5
Scanning present readers...
0: Activkey Sim 00 00

Sun Sep  4 17:45:29 2011
Reader 0: Activkey Sim 00 00
  Card state: Card inserted,
  ATR: 3B FD 18 00 FF 80 B1 FE 45 1F 07 80 73 00 21 13 57 4A 54 48 61 31 47 00 5F

ATR: 3B FD 18 00 FF 80 B1 FE 45 1F 07 80 73 00 21 13 57 4A 54 48 61 31 47 00 5F
+ TS = 3B --> Direct Convention
+ T0 = FD, Y(1): 1111, K: 13 (historical bytes)
  TA(1) = 18 --> Fi=372, Di=12, 31 cycles/ETU
    129032 bits/s at 4 MHz, fMax for Fi = 5 MHz => 161290 bits/s
  TB(1) = 00 --> VPP is not electrically connected
  TC(1) = FF --> Extra guard time: 255 (special value)
  TD(1) = 80 --> Y(i+1) = 1000, Protocol T = 0
-----
  TD(2) = B1 --> Y(i+1) = 1011, Protocol T = 1
-----
  TA(3) = FE --> IFSC: 254
  TB(3) = 45 --> Block Waiting Integer: 4 - Character Waiting Integer: 5
  TD(3) = 1F --> Y(i+1) = 0001, Protocol T = 15 - Global interface bytes following
-----
  TA(4) = 07 --> Clock stop: not supported - Class accepted by the card: (3G) A 5V B 3V C 1.8V
+ Historical bytes: 80 73 00 21 13 57 4A 54 48 61 31 47 00
  Category indicator byte: 80 (compact TLV data object)
    Tag: 7, len: 3 (card capabilities)
      Selection methods: 00
      Data coding byte: 21
        - Behaviour of write functions: proprietary
        - Value 'FF' for the first byte of BER-TLV tag fields: invalid
        - Data unit in quartets: 2
      Command chaining, length fields and logical channels: 13
        - Logical channel number assignment: by the card
        - Maximum number of logical channels: 4
    Tag: 5, len: 7 (card issuer's data)
      Card issuer data: 4A 54 48 61 31 47 00
+ TCK = 5F (correct checksum)

Possibly identified card (using /usr/share/pcsc/smartcard_list.txt):
3B FD 18 00 FF 80 B1 FE 45 1F 07 80 73 00 21 13 57 4A 54 48 61 31 47 00 5F
        Activkey Sim
        http://www.actividentity.com/products/activkey_usb_tokens__home.php

At this point the pcsc_scan hangs. When I unplug the stick i get this extra output :

Sun Sep  4 17:50:26 2011
Reader 0: Activkey Sim 00 00
  Card state: Status unavailable,
Scanning present readers...
Waiting for the first reader...

but pcsc_scan keeps hanging until i CTRL-C

/g

[SSO201110141]

Hi.

How many ActivKey_SIM devices appears on your VM, on mine sometimes there is only 1 named "ActivKey_SIM" and sometimes there are 2: "ActivKey_SIM" and "Virtual ActivKey_SIM 00".

Make sure connecting all ActivKey_SIM devices you find to your VM. On mine the pcsc_scan output looks just like yours except by the lines:

Possibly identified card (using /usr/share/pcsc/smartcard_list.txt):
    NONE

Regards

[SSO201110141]

Forgot to mention...

Try killing pcscd process before connecting the ActivKey, so the device Virtual ActivKey 00 00 will not be created. That's how my VM is working.. usually I don't need to kill pcscd, just connecting both devices will work. The ActivKey is not available to my host OS at this time but my VM is working fine...

Regards

[glaubner]

Hi SSO,

i always get two devices. The "Activkey_Sim" and the "Virtual ActivKey SIm 00"

When i connect both devices to the VM, then my syslog and kern.log fill up quickly with messages until the filesystem is full.

On 10.4 i used to only connect the virtual sim...

/g

[glaubner]

When i kill the pcscd, I also get only one device, which is the Activkey_SIM

When i connect that to the VM and then open the VPN dialog in Windows 7 it does complain that there is no smart card in the reader (well at least it does recognize the reader...)

/g

[SSO201110141]

Very strange....

Let me just enumerate how did I install my system...

I installed Ubuntu 11.04 64bits and updates on an notebook HP EliteBook 6930p with 3GB of memory.

Installed VMmare workstation 7.1.4 64bits

Created a VM and installed a Windows 7 64bits and VMware tools on it.

After some time operating the VM, VMware kept hanging or even not opening.

I found out I need to add the following line at the beggining of my /usr/bin/vmware script in order to get VMware stable:

"export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0/libglib-2.0.so.0"

(did you do it on your vmware script?)

So VMware got stable and then I could install patches and other binaries to my VM.

In some moment I received a message from VMware workstation that some binaries should be recompiled, so I just accepted.

I tried to authenticate myself on some corporate webpages by using the ActivKey and after some time my VM was hanging until removing the ActivKey.

Tried to install the Linux packages to recognise the ActivKey on host before trying again on VM, so I installed some Smartcard drivers and tools.

Even so my VM was hanging, no matter connecting the virtual or both devices.

Tried disabling USB2 support.

By connecting only the virtual device my VM was still hanging but connecting both worked fine.

Basically these are the steps I followed.

Hope it help you

[SSO201110141]

Hi..

An additional info...

I had some problems with my system and I decided to reinstall Ubuntu from scratch.

But this time I installed Ubuntu 11.04 and VMware 7.1.4 both 32 bits.

I changed vmware script as mentioned before and restored my VM from backup. (remember my original vmx has USB2.0 support deactivated)

This time I did not install any Smartcard support file.

Just connected the "ActivKey" USB device to VM.

I could authenticate successfully to VPN.

Still testing

regards

[SSO201110141]

Hi

I just updated my video driver and enabled USB 2.0 support.

Everything still working...

Seems that the SmartCard support packages were causing the problems...

Regards

[glaubner]

Thanks SSO !

I have the same installation order, but i didn't switch to 32bit OS (and i can't because i need the ability to support more RAM).

I agree, it's probably the pcscd code, which is causing the issue, maybe there is a problem in between 32bit and 64bit versions of the code....

Anyways, I decided to try 10.4 and Workstation 7.1.4 (all 64bit). That works fine. Now I have to dig out drivers for some HW, as the 10.4 doesn't support the networking devices on a 8560w.

Thanks again !

/g