Signing data with smartcards on Mac in C++

Question

Dear lazyweb,

is there any support in Mac OS X for signing data using smartcards? I have looked through the system headers and found only vauge references to smart card support (in SecKeychain.h), which didn't really take me anywhere.

If there's no built-in support, which are my options (ie. what free/non-free libraries exist that can help me)?

Answer 1

The Apple-CDSA mailing list is probably the best place to ask this; CDSA stands for Common Data Security Architecture, which includes all of the security/keychain/signing infrastructure on Mac OS X, including any support for smart-card security.

Plenty of people who use and work on CDSA will be there. It will probably also be worth checking the archives; someone may have already done what you're trying to do.

Answer 2

I'm answering my own question here, for reference. The OpenSC libraries provides everything you need to deal with smartcards, and it is cross-platform (Windows, Linux and Mac), and its license is good for commercial projects.

Answer 3

The MUSCLE stuff also provides an API, PKCS#11 module, etc., and works on OS X.

The MUSCLE Framework and OpenSC may support different cards so it depends on what kind you are using.