PKCS11 driver for CAC card/ card reader

Question

I have a doubt regarding how to get the pkcs11 driver for interacting with CAC cards .As far as I understood the card reader should provide the driver. I just checked the SCR331 card reader abd they do not seem to have a pkcs11 driver. However the US DoD contracted ActivClient seems to have one which works with the SCR331. Also I got to know that OpenSC has a windows pkcs11 driver opensc-pkcs11.dll. Will this work with the SCR331 card reader. Also I found from the Putty-CAC project that Litronics NetSign card reader supplies its own pkcs11 driver ? "C:\WINNT\system32\core32. It seems a bit confusing, some card readers does not provide and some seem to provide.

We had earlier used the Sun SCA6000 crypto accelerator card and interacted with it using the library file that it had provided;

So Should not the pkcs11 driver ideally come with the card reader ? How is it possible that the pkcs11 driver by OpenSC works with a proprietary card reader ? Is it possible that it can work with different card readers ?

Thanks for clarifying

Answer 1

A card reader does NOT provide a PKCS#11 driver. A smart card vendor might provide one. Usually you get a PKCS#11 provider that works with your specific card and any compatible smart card reader. I know OpenSC supports PIV cards, don't know how well that matches with CAC. ActiveClient should definitely provide a PKCS#11 module for CAC cards, from what I've heard.

A card reader manufacturer only provides drivers for the card reader device, not for smart cards.