Proxkey Driver Installation

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Oda Znidarsic

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:56:15 PM8/3/24

to ecpaverperp

I am trying to install SmartCard token Driver(Watchdata proxkey) in ubuntu 22.04.The driver downloaded from emudra site: -mudhra.com/repository/and NICDSign.deb Downloaded from _id=1501. After Driver installation,we cannot access the token because failed to fetch the token configuration details.kindly help to resolve the following issue.Please note that same device,driver combination working with ubuntu 18,04 and 20.04

The explanation for installation process of ProxKey Driver is explaining below. Other DSC tokens will have similar setup procedure for token Driver Installation. For installing Driver and signerDSC Token should be installed in the system. First connect the DSC Token in the system. Press the keys Alt+Ctrl+t in the keyboard. At that time a terminal will be opened. Press Enter key for identifying the version of java to be installed. If the version is Java 1.8 then install that particular version.

Press Alt+Ctrl+t and open a terminal for installing token driver. Type cd desktop in that terminal, then type the system password after that insert the command for installing the driver.

A new window, with the name as in Token and the validity period of certificate will be displayed on the screen. Select the check box and click Ok button. If the name is matched then SPARK registration will be completed.

Recently, Poppler (the free software library for rendering PDF; used by Evince and Okular) and Okular in particular has gained a lot of improvements in displaying digital signature and actually signing a PDF document digitally (see this, this, this, this, this and this). When the main developer Albert asked for feedback on what important functionality would the community like to see incorporated as part this effort; I had asked if it would be possible to use hardware tokens for digital signature. Turns out, poppler uses nss (Network Security Services, a Mozilla project) for managing the certificates, and if the token is enrolled in NSS database, Okular should be able to just use it.

This blog post written a couple of years ago about using hardware token in GNU/Linux is still actively referred by many users. Trying to make the hardware token work with Okular gave me some more insights. With all the other prerequisites (token driver installation etc.) in place, follow these steps to get everything working nicely.

Hardware tokens with digital signature are used for filing various financial documents in Govt of India portals. The major tokens supported by eMudhra are WatchData ProxKey, ePass 2003, Aladdin, Safenet, TrustKey etc. Many of these hardware tokens come (in CDROM image mode) with drivers and utilities to manage the signatures, unfortunately only in Windows platform.

Around 2019 September, KITE announced that they will start supporting government officials using digital signatures under GNU/Linux, as most of Kerala government offices now run on libre software. KITE have made the necessary drivers, signing tools and manuals available.