pcscd.socket is disabled after installation
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
pcsc-lite (Debian) |
Fix Released
|
Unknown
|
|||
pcsc-lite (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Jammy |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Brian Murray | ||
Kinetic |
Won't Fix
|
High
|
Brian Murray | ||
Lunar |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Brian Murray |
Bug Description
[ Impact ]
The pscc-lite package provides an open source implementation of PC/SC, the de-facto standard to interface Personal Computers with Smart Cards/Readers.
This bug is in the upstream debian packaging, and results in the pcscd.socket being disabled after installation. This prevents automatic startup of the associated pcscd.service, thus preventing automatic handling of Smart Cards/Readers w/out manual intervention to enable the socket (which doesn't persist across reboots).
This is especially painful for users that require Smart Authentication for login.
[ Test Plan ]
Steps to reproduce:
1. If installed, remove and do a fresh install of the package pcscd
(the sole version released for jammy is 1.9.5-3).
2. Verify that the pcscd.socket is disabled:
$ systemctl status pcscd.socket
○ pcscd.socket - PC/SC Smart Card Daemon Activation Socket
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/
Active: inactive (dead)
Triggers: ● pcscd.service
Listen: /run/pcscd/
3. [Optional] insert a Smart Card or Crypto Token (e.g. a Yubikey or Nitrokey) that's known to work on Ubuntu and verify that it fails to work.
Repeating the same steps with a package built with the patch attached to comment #27 should ensure that the socket is enabled, and that interaction with a Smart Card or Crypto Token should work w/out manual intervention.
[ Where problems could occur ]
This is a back-ported change from upstream and is a result of a bug in dh_installsystemd (see comment #26). As such the risk is minimal.
The only potential risk of failure I can come up with is a snap that stages the old version of the client library, as it would be looking in the wrong place for the socket.
[ Other Info ]
This bug was originally reported against Ubuntu Mate 22.04, however it applies to all derivatives of Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 LTS.
Note - while there's some disagreement as to whether this bug occurs 100% of the time across all 22.04 installations, it's pretty clear from the upstream Debian bug and subsequent packaging fix that we should land this.
As the upstream fix landed in 1.9.9-2 (which is already released in mantic) only the following releases are impacted by this bug:
- jammy
- kinetic
- lunar
tags: | added: jammy |
summary: |
- pcscd 1.9.5-3 do not start automatically, only manual + pcscd.socket is disabled after installation |
description: | updated |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Jammy): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Kinetic): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Lunar): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Jammy): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Kinetic): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Lunar): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
description: | updated |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Debian): | |
status: | Unknown → Fix Released |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Lunar): | |
status: | Triaged → In Progress |
assignee: | nobody → Brian Murray (brian-murray) |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Kinetic): | |
status: | Triaged → In Progress |
assignee: | nobody → Brian Murray (brian-murray) |
Changed in pcsc-lite (Ubuntu Jammy): | |
status: | Triaged → In Progress |
assignee: | nobody → Brian Murray (brian-murray) |
tags: |
added: verification-done verification-done-lunar removed: verification-needed verification-needed-kinetic verification-needed-lunar |
I just made a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04. system/ pcscd.socket; disabled; vendor preset: enabled) pcscd.comm (Stream)
For an unknown reason pcscd.socket is DISABLED.
$ systemctl status pcscd.socket
○ pcscd.socket - PC/SC Smart Card Daemon Activation Socket
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/
Active: inactive (dead)
Triggers: ● pcscd.service
Listen: /run/pcscd/
To solve the problem you can do:
sudo systemctl enable pcscd.socket
Then reboot, or run "sudo systemctl start pcscd.socket".