USB eToken redirection

[ewessely]

Hi all,
I'm having troubles with USB redirection in my VM on VMWorkstation 16.2.1
Host: Windows 10 Ent.
VM: Windows 10 Ent.

I've a SafeNet eToken from Sectigo for EV codesigning.
On my host, the eToken is recognized correctly as token containing my EV certificate.
In VM the token is recognized as (smart)card not containing any certificate.

It seems there is an issue with the USB redirection of the token.
An other token (eToken 5110 FIPS) does not make any trouble.
The problem is only with the new token (eToken 5110 CC (940))

Any hints?

regards
Erich

[CarltonR]

From what you are describing VMware Workstation is doing what its supposed to do, i.e. adding the USB Device to the Win 10 VM, and as such, this would therefore suggest that it's a Win 10 driver issue.

Have you tried either updating the eToken driver (with the eToken 5110 plugged in) or installing the latest client software ?

[bluefirestorm]

Shut down VM and add the following lines to the VM vmx configuration file, if these lines are not there yet.

usb.generic.allowCCID = "TRUE"
usb.ccid.disable = "TRUE"

These lines will make the Smartcard devices not a shared device between host and VM. As it is no longer a shared device, you would then have to connect the smartcard device via the removable devices menu and it will also use the device drivers of the smartcard manufacturer rather than the Microsoft universal CCID driver.

[ewessely]

Thanks for pointing me into the right direction!

I had already updated the drivers before starting the thread. To use the eToken 5110 CC I had to update to SafeNet Authentication Client 10.8 R6 (from Thales) which provides the drivers.
But with your suggestion about the drivers I dived a little bit deeper: to eliminate the USB redirection mechanism I installed virtualhere on an other PC and shared the token via TCP from there. Result: consuming the token via TCP on the host works fine, doing the same in the VM resulted into the same problem as described. Conclusio: not a VMVare problem.

Final solution:
uninstalling the SafeNet Client in the VM. In windows device manager (show also hidden devices) uninstall ALL Smart card filters and ALL Smart card readers. What of them finally did the magic I don't know. Now reinstall Safenet client, connect the token and everything was up and running. Modifying the vmx was not necessary.

Thanks for your support!!!