Runtux Blog

Two weeks ago I’ve finally — wanted to do this forever — passed the ham exam and got a callsign for austria. I had done some SWL (short wave listening) quite some time ago — including digital modes like RTTY. Now I can explore the sending side, too…Thanks to the Metafunk group @Metalab and to Mike, OE3MZC and Gerhard, OE3GSU for supporting our joint preparation.

Vor zwei Wochen habe ich endlich die Amateurfunkprüfung gemacht — ich wollte das eigentlich schon immer tun — und habe jetzt ein Rufzeichen für Österreich. Schon früher habe ich ein bisschen SWL (Kurzwellen-Hören) betrieben, inklusive digitaler Modi wie RTTY (Funkfernschreiben). Jetzt kann ich auch die Sendeseite ausprobieren… Danke an die Metafunk Gruppe im Metalab und an Mike, OE3MZC und Gerhard, OE3GSU für die Unterstützung unserer gemeinsame Vorbereitung.

This is a step-by-step Howto on installation and usage of the necessary commands to get smartcards or crypto-tokens working on Linux — and on Windows.
Smart card software on Linux consists of a driver for the card reader also called card terminal and a driver for the smartcard or token. There are two projects, OpenSC and MUSCLE. Both projects produce drivers for card terminals (for OpenSC this sub-project is called OpenCT) and for various cards. There are configuration options to make one project see the drivers of the other and vice versa.
I’m using OpenCT (card terminal) and OpenSC (smart card) software because these have worked better for me — except for the pcscd daemon from the MUSCLE project that might be needed for some applications. If you’re using software that depends on a PC/SC interface, you’ll also need to install the pcscd daemon (comes as a debian package).
Manufacturers are continuously improving their smartcards and the applications that run on the card. Up to now this has created an ever-changing pile of middleware to talk to these cards. An idea to improve the situation was a programmable card: Put a Java interpreter on the card and provide applets (so-called “cardlets”) for applications. The idea claims this would improve the situation for middleware on the host. Unfortunately this isn’t quite true: The Java virtual machine on smartcards is subject to change. So we have cards with a recent JVM and old cards with an ancient (1.1 from 2001) JVM. This means the applet needed to make the card work has to be cross-compiled to an older JVM depending on the card used. And there are still a number of host configuration issues.
The situation is worsened by the fact that many manufacturers of smartcards provide cards with their proprietary cardlet in the ROM of the card. This means these cards cannot be used with the applet that matches your middleware. And we’re back to the start and have to write a driver for the proprietary (this time java) middleware as before.
If you’re using Java-based smartcards you need to get a card that can accept a new applet and has the necessary developer keys published. Usually these cards are called “developer version” or similar. You then can use the MCardApplet from the MUSCLE plugins project. I recommend to build the applet yourself — after all this is a security application where your security depends on the software running on the card. There is a section below for preparing a java card with the appropriate applet.
I got the eToken PRO 32k (4.2B) working with OpenSC but not the eToken PRO 72k (Java). The first uses Siemens CardOS, the number in parentheses denotes the version number. Unfortunately these old CardOS based tokens will be discontinued, and Siemens seems to have announced end of life status for its CardOS.
The 72k eToken from Aladdin uses Java and needs a Java applet. The OpenSC project claims that the Java token works with OpenSC, but it didn’t for me. Maybe the token wasn’t a developer version that can accept an applet. The token also didn’t work under windows (although it worked with the Aladdin software there, i.e., I could initialize it) and I had a recent OpenSC binary release for windows from October 2009.
From the OpenSC documentation: “For programmable java cards: the support is for the card with the specific applet – if you have a different applet on your card, it might not be supported.”
First steps for non-Java cards or Java-cards with MCardApplet installed (for installation of the applet, see below):
Install smartcard software and card terminal framework:

apt-get install pcscd opensc libengine-pkcs11-openssl

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libengine-pkcs11-openssl libp11-0

If your smartcard reader is not supported by pcscd, you should install the openct package in addition to the packages above. You can then run pcscd on top of openct.
After installing these programs, we need to configure pcscd to correctly use our reader. Configure /etc/opensc/opensc.conf to use the pcscd method, search for reader_drivers inside the app default stanza of the config file and modify this to:

reader_drivers = pcsc;

For CCID compatible readers without openct installed, the reader should be visible after plugging in the reader into the USB port:

Readers known about:
Nr.    Driver     Name
0      pcsc       Gemplus GemPC Key 00 00

If the card reader is not directly supported by pcscd (but is supported by openct) we need to configure /etc/reader.conf.d/openct, a config file of pcscd, to use OpenCT as the input method, for this the file should contain:

FRIENDLYNAME     "OpenCT"
DEVICENAME       /dev/null
LIBPATH          /usr/lib/openct-ifd.so
CHANNELID        0

after modifying this file on Debian (on non-Debian systems you’ll probably have to modify /etc/reader.conf directly) we have to run:

update-reader.conf

which creates a new /etc/reader.conf. Now stop and restart openct and pcscd in the following order:

/etc/init.d/pcscd stop
/etc/init.d/openct restart
/etc/init.d/pcscd start

When everything went OK, you should see a pcscd based reader using opensc-tool:

opensc-tool -l

Readers known about:
Nr.    Driver     Name
0      pcsc       OpenCT 00 00

Add user to “scard” group in /etc/group and log in again to have the permissions to access the card. This is necessary if you want to use a reader provided by openct without going through pcscd.
If all else fails, you can still use openct without pcscd and set reader_drivers in /etc/opensc/opensc.conf to:

reader_drivers = openct;

Then a reader should be visible like this:

opensc-tool -l

Readers known about:
Nr.    Driver     Name
0      openct     Aladdin eToken PRO 64k
1      openct     OpenCT reader (detached)
2      openct     OpenCT reader (detached)
3      openct     OpenCT reader (detached)
4      openct     OpenCT reader (detached)

Now we should be able to read the card, if there is only one token in the USB port and no other smartcard readers are installed, we can leave out the -r option (for specifying the reader to use):

cardos-info

3b:f2:18:00:02:c1:0a:31:fe:58:c8:09:75
Info : CardOS V4.2B (C) Siemens AG 1994-2005
Chip type: 123
Serial number: 27 37 c0 09 2b 18
Full prom dump:
33 66 00 45 CB CB CB CB 7B FF 27 37 C0 09 2B 18 3f.E....{.'7..+.
00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
OS Version: 200.9 (that's CardOS M4.2b)
Current life cycle: 32 (administration)
Security Status of current DF:
Free memory : 1024
ATR Status: 0x0 ROM-ATR
Packages installed:
Ram size: 4, Eeprom size: 32, cpu type: 66, chip config: 63
Free eeprom memory: 27686
System keys: PackageLoadKey (version 0xfe, retries 10)
System keys: StartKey (version 0xff, retries 10)
Path to current DF:

1.   Using Java-based Smartcards
Java-based smartcards need some preparation to work with OpenSC. First you should make sure that you have a card that permits you to upload your own applet (cardlet) to the card. This usually means you need a so-called developer version. Avoid cards that have a proprietary manufacturer applet in read-only memory! You also usually need some development keys to upload a cardlet to the card.
For the following instructions I’ve used the Gemalto TOP IM FIPS CY2 (Cyberflex Access 64k v2) which is an old card that has a Java virtual machine version 1.1 from 2001 (!) but the card is well established and will probably be available for some time.
For the card reader I’ve used the Gemalto USB Shell V2 (GemPC Key), a CCID compatible reader. When buying a new reader, you should use one that follows the CCID specification from the PC/SC Workgroup, this ensures that OpenCT will support it. The card reader I’m using can read ID-000 format cards, also called SIM cards. These are small form-factor cards that are nice for authentication purposes. The Cyberflex card I’m using is available in ID-000. If a card isn’t available in ID-000, chances are you can make it fit using a service similar to this SIM cutting service.
Preparing the card for use with OpenSC is a two-step process. The first step is to obtain the necessary applet for the card. The second is to upload the applet to the card and initialize the card with a default PIN. Note that 2048 bit keys may not work with MCardApplet with the current software versions, see Some notes on key sizes.

1.1.   Obtaining the MCardApplet for your card
I recommend building your own version of the applet from source. Get the source code from svn://svn.debian.org/muscleplugins/trunk/MCardApplet using the source code control tool subversion:

svn co svn://svn.debian.org/muscleplugins/trunk/MCardApplet

I had to make several changes to use Java 1.6 for cross-building for the ancient Java VM that runs on the card. My Cflex.properties looks like this:

CARD_NAME=Cflex
JAVA_BUILD_HOME=/usr
JC_HOME=${basedir}/depends/jc212
API_JAR=${JC_HOME}/lib/api21.jar
API_EXPORT_FILES=${JC_HOME}/api21_export_files
CAPTRANS=${basedir}/depends/jc212/bin/captransf.jar
VM_SOURCE_VERSION=1.2
VM_TARGET_VERSION=1.1
BOOTCLASSPATH=${basedir}/depends/jdk1.2.2/depends/jdk1.2.2/lib

In particular, I’m using the native java environment installed on debian lenny. This lives in /usr. Otherwise you should follow the excellent building instructions in the file INSTALL. Then I’ve modified the javac in the target named compile in the common.xml ant build file as follows:

<target depends="precompile" name="compile">
    <mkdir dir="${OUTPUT_DIR}"/>
    <javac debug="on"
        verbose="on"
        fork="true"
        executable="${JAVA_BUILD_HOME}/bin/javac"
        srcdir="${APPLET_SRC}"
        destdir="${OUTPUT_DIR}"
        target="${VM_TARGET_VERSION}"
        source="${VM_SOURCE_VERSION}">
        <bootclasspath>
            <pathelement location="${BOOTCLASSPATH}"/>
        </bootclasspath>
        <classpath>
            <pathelement location="${API_JAR}"/>
            <pathelement location="."/>
            <pathelement path="${java.class.path}"/>
        </classpath>
    </javac>
</target>

I’ve added the target and source options. These refer to the specific java virtual machine version we’re cross-building for. I’ve also added the bootclasspath to get the classes that are VM specific from the old java development package.
This allows me to cross-build the applet for an old version of the java virtual machine without running the old java development environment which does no longer run on recent versions of Linux due to library incompatibilities.
I also had to change all the backslashes in common.xml to forward slashes. It looks like the java compiler can handle the backslashes in path names, but the other tools cannot.
Before building you should also look through CflexCapabilities.properties for any capabilities you want to enable which are not enabled in the default configuration. I had to enable -DWITH_RSA_2048 and -DWITH_SIGN for example.
For the impatiant I’m offering a pre-compiled version of the applet. I’ll update this text with the build instructions soon.

1.2.   Uploading the applet to the card
As a preparation for this step, you should install the pcsc daemon and the pcsclite development packages on debian:

apt-get install pcscd libpcsclite-dev

For uploading the applet to the card, I recommend using gpshell, a tool from the globalplatform project which depends on the globalplatform library. Unfortunately these are not yet packaged as Debian packages, so obtain the sourcecode to both, gpshell and the globalplatform library . Unpack these packages and build using the normal process:

./configure
make
make install

For the globalplatform library you need the development libraries for libpcsclite, available as the Debian package libpcsclite-dev which should be installed before the ./configure step above.
If you installed the globalplatform library without root privileges, you have to run ldconfig as root to make the new library available in the shared library cache.
Check that your smartcard services are running (see above for how to do that) and verify that you see your card reader (or token) using:

opensc-tool -l

The gpshell tool interfaces to the card via pcscd, so you should see something similar to the following:

Readers known about:
Nr.    Driver     Name
0      pcsc       Gemplus GemPC Key 00 00

Now we can proceed to upload the applet using gpshell. We need the following applet upload gpshell script, put this into the file applet_install.gpshell, note that lines terminated with “\” need to be concatenated, gpshell currently doesn’t understand continuation lines:

enable_trace
establish_context
card_connect
select -AID a000000003000000
open_sc -security 1 -keyind 0 -keyver 0 \
   -mac_key 404142434445464748494a4b4c4d4e4f \
   -enc_key 404142434445464748494a4b4c4d4e4f
delete -AID a00000000101
delete -AID a000000001
delete -AID a0000003230101
delete -AID a00000032301
install_for_load -pkgAID a000000001 -nvCodeLimit 16000 \
   -sdAID a000000003000000
load -file CardEdgeCflex.ijc
install_for_install -instParam 00 -priv 02 -AID a00000000101 \
   -pkgAID a000000001 -instAID a00000000101 -nvDataLimit 32000
card_disconnect
release_context

and run the script with gpshell:

gpshell applet_install.gpshell

Finally we will have to set a default PIN for the card using opensc-tool:

opensc-tool -s 00:A4:04:00:06:A0:00:00:00:01:01 -s \
B0:2A:00:00:38:08:4D:75:73:63:6C:65:30:30:04:01:08:\
30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:08:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:\
05:02:08:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:30:08:30:30:30:30:30:\
30:30:30:00:00:17:70:00:02:01

This sets the PIN to eight zeros, “00000000″. After this procedure the card can be used like a normal PKCS#15 based card with OpenSC.

1.2.1.   Some notes on using the gpshell script with other cards
Many of the magic numbers in the gpshell script depend on the card in use and on the applet that is uploaded. An AID is an applet-ID. The open_sc command has nothing to do with OpenSC, but opens a secure channel to the card. The parameters are the developer keys of the card. In our example, the key is used twice and the hex-bytes denote the string:

@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO

The AID used for the secure channel is different for other brands of cards. I was able to find out this AID using the following AID gpshell script:

enable_trace
establish_context
card_connect
open_sc -security 1 -keyind 0 -keyver 0 \
   -mac_key 404142434445464748494a4b4c4d4e4f \
   -enc_key 404142434445464748494a4b4c4d4e4f
get_status -element 80
card_disconnect
release_context

This displays for the Gemalto TOP IM FIPS CY2:

List of applets (AID state privileges)
a000000003000000        7       0

The delete commands remove older versions of the applet — there also was a version that had another applet ID — from the card before uploading the new version. Think of the applet living in a package named a000000001 and the applet named a00000000101. The install_for_load command establishes the package inside the a000000003000000 package. Then the install_for_install command installs the applet into non volatile memory after upload.
Note that these numbers are hard-coded into the applet that is being uploaded. This is defined during compile-time and for the MCardApplet this can be configured in the common.xml ant-file. When packaging the compiled java classes, the build process generates .cap files which contain the applet ID in binary format, notably the Applet.cap file contains the AID of the applet.
So if these numbers are changed when building a custom applet, be sure to adapt the upload commands, too. A warning here: All tools that depend on the MCardApplet expect the given AID, so changing the AID would incur a change of all tools or at least their configuration.

2.   OpenVPN Preparation: Step by step process with high-level tool
This section describes how to initialize a token, create a user key and certificate using tools that come with OpenVPN. This was only tested on Linux since the certificate handling scripts for OpenVPN are more advanced on Linux.
I had to patch the pkitool of OpenVPN to use the pkcs15-init command instead of the pkcs11-tool command for initializing the token and creating keys. The reason is that Aladdin limits their tokens to use one key for only one purpose (encryption or signing). The pkcs15-init command allows the specification of the key purpose while the pkcs11-tool command does not.
In the following we assume you are in the easy-rsa directory of OpenVPN, and you have initialized the configuration by reading the configuration in vars. It’s also always a good idea to have a backup of all the OpenVPN keys before starting.
Initializing the token for first use (or re-using an already formatted token) THIS DESTROYS ALL DATA ON THE TOKEN:

./pkitool --pkcs15-init 0 "Thomas Mustermann"

New User PIN.
Please enter User PIN:
Please type again to verify:
Unblock Code for New User PIN (Optional - press return for no PIN).
Please enter User unblocking PIN (PUK):
Please type again to verify:

If the token was already initialized, the procedure would also ask for the old password.
Now we can check that everything worked, by looking at the PINs:

pkcs15-tool --list-pins

Now we can proceed to generate a key pair and a certificate, this takes a long time:

./pkitool --pkcs15 /usr/lib/opensc-pkcs11.so 0 45 "user cert" client27

When everything went OK, we should be able to display keys, public keys, and certificates on the token:

pkcs15-tool --list-keys
pkcs15-tool --list-public-keys
pkcs15-tool --list-certificates

3.   What is needed for Windows
I’ve first installed the latest OpenVPN installer, only this package has the necessary TAP network driver for Linux. Only the TAP driver needs to be installed.
I’ve used a compiled version of OpenVPN that comes bundled with OpenSC from the binary windows repository, I’ve used the latest

opensc-i686-w32-mingw32-007-*.*

files (from Oct 2009). For 64bit Windows (AMD64) the

opensc-x86_64-pc-mingw32-003*.*

files should be used. Everything unpacked from these files should be installed to

C:\Programs\OpenVPN

I’ve also created a configuration directory under that directory called config. In config there are the necessary certificates (root ca) and hash keys and the client.ovpn configuration file.
When using my OpenVPN admin script, Python for windows from python.org and the Python WIN32 package are needed. In addition my rsclib library needs to be installed. For installing rsclib, unpack the .zip file and run:

setup.py install

from a command prompt. The admin script in pyovpn.zip has the same installation procedure.
After installing everything, basic working of the smart card can be verified with the OpenSC tools:

opensc-tool -l
cardos-info
pkcs15-tool --list-certificates

3.1.   Aladdin Token
For using the Aladdin eToken with Windows, the smart card tools of the manufacturer have to be installed — these include the driver for accessing the tokens. I’ve used:

PKIClient-x32-5.00.msi

from

eToken PKI Client 5.0 SP1 Windowsx32.zip

3.2.   Gemalto USB Shell Token V2
The driver for the Gemalto USB Shell Token reader can be downloaded free of charge from the Gemalto website.

4.   Using OpenVPN with SmartCard
OpenVPN uses a PKCS#11 provider library, on Debian this is /usr/lib/opensc-pkcs11.so, to access the smart card. We can show which certificates are on the card by issuing:

openvpn --show-pkcs11-ids /usr/lib/opensc-pkcs11.so

The following objects are available for use.
Each object shown below may be used as parameter to
--pkcs11-id option please remember to use single quote mark.

Certificate
      DN:             /C=AT/ST=AT/L=Weidling/ ...
      Serial:         03
      Serialized id:  OpenSC\x20Project/PKCS\x20 ...

Now OpenVPN can be started with the smartcard. I’m using the following additional config entries for OpenVPN — pkcs11-providers is set to the path of the PKCS#11 provider library:

pkcs11-providers "/usr/lib/opensc-pkcs11.so"
pkcs11-id-management
management 127.0.0.1 4711
management-query-passwords
management-hold

For Windows the provider library becomes (assuming the OpenSC tools where installed to C:ProgramsOpenVPNbin):

pkcs11-providers "C:\\Programs\\OpenVPN\\bin\\opensc-pkcs11.dll"

The other parameters are the same as for other operating systems.
Note also that the askpass option of OpenVPN does not work for querying the token password. In my experiment I had to give the token password to OpenVPN via the management interface using the config option management-query-passwords.
This configuration tells OpenVPN to open the management interface on Port 4711 of localhost. It will ask for the passphrase of the Aladdin token on that port. Additionally we wait (management-hold) until a management program has opened the management interface and told OpenVPN to proceed.
The pkcs11-id-management tells OpenVPN to accept the pkcs11-id to use via the management interface. With a little intelligence in the management interface we can avoid having the pkcs11-id in the configuration file (which would then be different for each user).
OpenVPN can be asked via the management interface about a listing of all pkcs11-ids. If there is only one certificate on the card, we feed the id of the only certificate back to OpenVPN when it asks about the pkcs11-id. This can be done without user intervention.
Unfortunately the feature that OpenVPN can ask the smartcard for all the certificates depends on the Token being present when OpenVPN is started. An alternative is to specify the pkcs11-id` directly in the configuration file. If this is specified, the management interface will ask for the token if it isn’t present when starting OpenVPN. The parameter to the pkcs11-id config parameter is the Serialized id from the command output above.
Since I have not found any graphical user interface programs for OpenVPN that can deal with asking the user for the token passphrase, I’ve written a little command-line python script which can be run on both, Windows and Linux, and will ask the user to insert the token and specify the token passphrase.
OpenVPN can be started with the script by issuing the command:

pyovpn

in a command prompt window. The command will start openvpn and proceed to ask for necessary token passwords.

4.1.   Low-level usage of the management interface
With the management-query-passwords option, OpenVPN will ask the password from the management interface. After starting the OpenVPN daemon and connnecting to the managment interface on the defined port (e.g., using telnet) we see the following message:

>INFO:OpenVPN Management Interface Version 1 -- type 'help' for more info
>PASSWORD:Need 'OpenSC Card (New User) token' password

The password can then be entered using the password command of the managment interface:

password 'OpenSC Card (New User) token' sehrgeheimespasswort

OpenVPN answers with:

SUCCESS: 'OpenSC Card (New User) token' password entered, but not yet verified

5.   Key Revocation
Revoke a certificate:

openssl ca  -config $KEY_CONFIG -revoke keys/02.pem

(re-) generate key revocation list (CRL):

openssl ca  -config $KEY_CONFIG -gencrl -out keys/crl.pem

6.   OpenVPN Preparation: Step by step process with low-level tools
This section describes the low-level tools as used by the patched pkitool from OpenVPN. It does not create a certificate with OpenSSL. This is for documentation purposes only (to understand what goes on behind the scenes) and was my first approach to getting started with OpenSC.

• Erase the card — if you already have a Security Officer PIN installed, you need this for erasing the card:

  
  pkcs15-init -E
  

• Create PKCS#15 structure (option –no-so-pin specified not to create security officer PIN and user PUK) on the card — note that the keys need to be between 6 and 8 characters long and should be numeric if you intend to use a keypad for key-entry (which applies mostly to smartcards not to USB tokens). Also note that if you omit –no-so-pin you should keep the Security Officer PIN secure — only with it can the token be re-formatted:

  
  pkcs15-init --create-pkcs15 --no-so-pin
  

  New Security Officer PIN (Optional - press return for no PIN).
  Please enter Security Officer PIN:
  Please type again to verify:
  Unblock Code for New User PIN (Optional - press return for no PIN).
  Please enter User unblocking PIN (PUK):
  Please type again to verify:
  

• The steps above can be rolled into one command:

  
  pkcs15-init -E --create-pkcs15 --no-so-pin
  

• Add an authentication (user) ID to the token with corresponding PIN and PUK:

  
  pkcs15-init --store-pin --auth-id 01 --label "User Name"
  

  New User PIN.
  Please enter User PIN:
  Please type again to verify:
  Unblock Code for New User PIN (Optional - press return for no PIN).
  Please enter User unblocking PIN (PUK):
  Please type again to verify:
  

• Check that everything worked, by looking at the PINs:

  
  pkcs15-tool --list-pins
  

  PIN [Security Officer PIN]
      Com. Flags: 0x3
      ID        : ff
      Flags     : [0xB2], local, initialized, needs-padding, soPin
      Length    : min_len:6, max_len:8, stored_len:8
      Pad char  : 0x00
      Reference : 1
      Type      : ascii-numeric
      Path      : 3f005015
  
  PIN [User Name]
      Com. Flags: 0x3
      ID        : 01
      Flags     : [0x32], local, initialized, needs-padding
      Length    : min_len:4, max_len:8, stored_len:8
      Pad char  : 0x00
      Reference : 3
      Type      : ascii-numeric
      Path      : 3f005015
  

• Now we can generate an RSA key on the card. Note that we could also import a PKCS-12 key onto the card, but the more secure option is to let the card generate the key (so the key will never be available outside the card). The split-key option actually generates two key-pairs, one for encryption and one for signing. There are some labelling options to attach names to the generated keys but these aren’t needed if you want only one key. You could specify an application profile with the –id option, if this isn’t given the default ID 45 (authentication purposes) is used. The command will ask for the Security officer PIN, then for the User PIN, then again for the Security officer PIN (!):

  
  pkcs15-init --generate-key rsa/2048 --auth-id 01 --split-key
  

  Note that with Java smartcards the keysize 2048 might not work with the current version of the tools, see Some notes on key sizes.

• Now we can verify that the key was actually stored on the card:

  
  pkcs15-tool --list-keys
  

  Private RSA Key [Private Key]
      Com. Flags  : 3
      Usage       : [0x4], sign
      Access Flags: [0x1D], sensitive, alwaysSensitive, neverExtract, local
      ModLength   : 2048
      Key ref     : 16
      Native      : yes
      Path        : 3f005015
      Auth ID     : 01
      ID          : 45
  

• List public keys:

  
  pkcs15-tool --list-public-keys
  

  Public RSA Key [Public Key]
      Com. Flags  : 2
      Usage       : [0x4], sign
      Access Flags: [0x0]
      ModLength   : 2048
      Key ref     : 0
      Native      : no
      Path        : 3f0050153048
      Auth ID     :
      ID          : 45
  

• For the following steps we will need a minimum openssl config file:

  
  openssl_conf            = openssl_init
  
  [ openssl_init ]
  engines                 = engine_section
  
  [ req ]
  default_bits            = 2048
  default_keyfile         = privkey.pem
  distinguished_name      = req_distinguished_name
  
  [ req_distinguished_name ]
  countryName                     = Country Name (2 letter code)
  countryName_default             = AT
  countryName_min                 = 2
  countryName_max                 = 2
  stateOrProvinceName             = State or Province Name (full name)
  stateOrProvinceName_default     = Austria
  localityName                    = Locality Name (eg, city)
  localityName_default            = Vienna
  0.organizationName              = Organization Name (eg, company)
  0.organizationName_default      = example.com
  organizationalUnitName          = Organizational Unit Name (eg, section)
  organizationalUnitName_default  = IT-Department
  commonName                      = Common Name (eg, server\'s hostname)
  commonName_max                  = 64
  emailAddress                    = Email Address
  emailAddress_max                = 40
  
  [ engine_section ]
  pkcs11 = pkcs11_section
  
  [ pkcs11_section ]
  engine_id = pkcs11
  dynamic_path = /usr/lib/engines/engine_pkcs11.so
  MODULE_PATH = /usr/lib/opensc-pkcs11.so
  init = 0
  

• Generate a certificate request (CSR) from this key using openssl:

  
  CLIENT=newclient
  openssl req -days 3650 -new -out $CLIENT.csr -config openssl.cnf \
    -engine pkcs11 -keyform engine -key 0:45 -sha1
  

  This will ask for all the certificate parameters. Alternatively these can be specified using the -subj option of openssl (this is broken into several lines but should be assembled into one line) with the following parameter:

  /C=AT/ST=Austria/L=Vienna/O=example.com/OU=IT-Department
  /CN=$CLIENT/emailAddress=user@example.com
  

• You can view the contents of the CSR using:

  
  openssl req -in $CLIENT.csr -noout -text
  

• Now sign the certificate request with whatever tools you are using. With the pkitool of OpenVPN this would become (after having copied the certificate request newclient.csr to the keys directory):

  
  pkitool --sign newclient
  

  The message about not being able to access newclient.key can be ignored.

• You may want to delete old certificates from the token:

  
  pkcs15-init --delete-objects cert --id=45
  

• Then import the new certificate onto the token:

  
  pkcs15-init --store-certificate newclient.crt --id=45
  

• Reading a certificate from the token and output with openssl:

  
  pkcs15-tool --read-certificate 45 | openssl x509 -noout -text
  

6.1.   Some notes on key sizes
Using 2048 bit keys should generally be possible with newer cards. I had some problems with these key sizes using my Java smartcard, though.
After uploading the applet to the card, it is possible to create a key with either 1024 or 2048 bit. This indicates that the card is able to handle the large keysize. When trying to generate a CSR using openssl the command failed with:

[opensc-pkcs11] iso7816.c:99:iso7816_check_sw: No precise diagnosis
[opensc-pkcs11] muscle.c:745:msc_compute_crypt_process: returning with:
                Card command failed
[opensc-pkcs11] muscle.c:840:msc_compute_crypt: returning with:
                Card command failed
[opensc-pkcs11] card-muscle.c:749:muscle_compute_signature:
                Card signature failed: Card command failed
[opensc-pkcs11] sec.c:53:sc_compute_signature: returning with:
                Card command failed
[opensc-pkcs11] pkcs15-sec.c:273:sc_pkcs15_compute_signature:
                sc_compute_signature() failed: Card command failed
20808:error:0E06D06C:configuration file routines:NCONF_get_string:no value:
conf_lib.c:329:group=req_attributes name=unstructuredName_min
20808:error:0E06D06C:configuration file routines:NCONF_get_string:no value:
conf_lib.c:329:group=req_attributes name=unstructuredName_max
20808:error:8000A005:Vendor defined:PKCS11_rsa_sign:General Error:
p11_ops.c:97:
20808:error:0D0C3006:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_item_sign:EVP lib:
a_sign.c:276:

Worse, after reinitializing the card in this state with:

pkcs15-init -E --create-pkcs15 --no-so-pin
pkcs15-init --store-pin --auth-id 01 --label "User Name"

and trying to generate a smaller key, this fails with:

pkcs15-init --generate-key rsa/1024 --auth-id 01 --split-key

[pkcs15-init] iso7816.c:102:iso7816_check_sw: Unknown SWs; SW1=9C, SW2=03
[pkcs15-init] muscle.c:557:msc_generate_keypair: returning with:
              Card command failed
[pkcs15-init] card.c:678:sc_card_ctl: returning with:
              Card command failed
[pkcs15-init] pkcs15-muscle.c:272:muscle_generate_key:
              Unable to generate key
[pkcs15-init] pkcs15-muscle.c:273:muscle_generate_key: returning with:
              Card command failed
Failed to generate key: Card command failed

I was able to fix this by re-downloading the applet onto the card. This also happens the other way round, when generating a 1024 bit key first and trying — after reinitializing the card with pkcs15-init — to generate a 2048 bit key.
So I recommend to stick with 1024 bit keys with the current software versions (debian lenny).

I’m currently at the media ecologies conference in manchester, UK. I was just talking about what tools and interfaces we need for collaboration tools (on the web). This also rehashes some of the ideas in my blog entry on cloud computing and the problems with (lack of) openness of cloud applications. The slides of my talk can be downloaded from my website.

Ronja, the optical data link device, is often cited as a failed open source hardware project — the last one mentioning it I just read is Lawrence Kincheloe’s excellent essay Musings Upon the Nature of Open Source Hardware as a Business at the end of his project visit summary at Factor e Farm.
Roja did fail (in the sense that it isn’t very widespread today not in the sense of being a cool open source project). One of the research studies I know of is the presentation “Ronja — Darknet of Lights” by Johan Söderberg at the 4th Oekonux conference for which Audio is available. The study is very interesting although I don’t agree with the conclusions. So why did Ronja “fail”?
Ronja’s main application was cheap internet access. At the time of its design in 2001 wireless LAN (Wifi) wasn’t yet available cheaply. And in the Czech Republic DSL wasn’t available at the time.
Now consider the technical characteristics of Ronja:

• Up to 10MBit/s
• Up to 1.4 km range
• Light: Doesn’t work in fog, or other bad weather (snow)
• Light: Hard to get the beam to the destination (direction)
• Light: Interference with daylight
• For full-duplex communication we need two (receiver + transmitter) devices
• sold for around 700$ at the time (the LED alone cost 120$ you get these for .75$ now)
• needed “a hell of a lot of time to build one” according to Söderberg

And compare these with WLAN:

• Up to 54MBit/s
• With good antennas several km range (I’ve built a link with 5.5km)
• Antennas are cheap and can even be built at home, e.g., a Cantenna — you can build a cantenna in an evening
• Works in fog and bad weather
• we need only one antenna at sender and one at receiver
• WLAN is very cheap nowadays, it became available (with new frequencies) in 2005 in cz.

So I think that Ronja “failed” because it was replaced by something better and cheaper that was readily available. It isn’t an example of a failed open source business model for hardware and shouldn’t be used as an example. This doesn’t mean that we already know how a business model for open source hardware should look like, though.
The idea behind Ronja — according to the Wikipedia article on Ronja “User Controlled Technology” is (mostly) achieved with WLAN technology today: We can use cheap devices and modify them (using open source firmware and homegrown antennas) to suit our needs. And there are large wireless communities now like Funkfeuer in Vienna who do their own Internet communication.

[Dies ist der Abstract meines Vortrags am Linuxwochenende im Metalab, die alte Version des Abstracts ist inzwischen von der Linuxwochen Homepage verschwunden...]

PGAPy ist ein Python-Wrapper für PGAPack, eine der vollständigsten Bibliotheken für genetischen Algorithmen. Die Python-Bibliothek eignet sich für eigene Experimente mit genetischen Algorithmen, aber auch für die Implementierung von kompletten Anwendungen.

Der Vortrag gibt eine kurze Einführung in genetischen Algorithmen mit Beispielen in Python. Vorgestellt wird u.a. ein Programm zum automatischen Erzeugen der bekannten Sudoku Zahlenrätsel. Dabei wird schrittweise die Bewertungsfunktion für ein Sudoku entwickelt.

Dieses Wochenende ist wieder Linuxwochenende im metalab, ich werde wieder einen Vortrag zu Open Money halten, ausserdem einen Lightning-Talk zu Generierung von Morse-Code als MIDI-Datei (was für einige Anwärter auf die Amateurfunklizenz vielleicht interessant ist, auch wenn das Code-Requirement inzischen gefallen ist.)

Vor kurzem habe ich ja meine Erlebnisse bei der Beantragung der Fotovoltaik-Förderung hier beschrieben. Inzwischen weiss ich dass ich nicht gefördert werde:

“In Niederösterreich stehen Förderungsmittel in der Höhe von EUR 4.750.000 zur Verfügung, mit diesen Mitteln können 426 Projekte gefördert werden. Ihr Ansuchen ist an 746. Stelle gereiht und kann daher derzeit aus dem verfügbaren Budget leider nicht gefördert werden”

Mich würde ja doch interessieren, wie anfechtbar eine Reihung nach Web-Formular-Ausfüllen ist — nach meiner Erfahrung muss es sich da um Sekunden gehandelt haben, in der Zeit haben offensichtlich über 700 Niederösterreicher vor mir eingereicht. Woher weiss ich, dass die Webserver-Ausfallzeit nicht benutzt wurde, um eigene “VIPs” mal zuerst in die Datenbank einzutragen?

Ich habs ja schonmal geschrieben: Eine Ziehung unter notarieller Aufsicht wäre fairer und transparenter.

Update 2009-09-14: Marcin from open source ecology has the video online which we showed at the event — Marcin von open source ecology hat das Video, das wir auf der Veranstaltung gezeicht haben online (video in enlish only).

Heute abend bin ich mit am Podium im Creative Commons CCalps Salon im Rahmen des Paraflows Festival zum Thema Open Everything. Ich werde auf die jetzt stattfindende Anwendung der Open Source Prinzipien die wir von der Software kennen auf andere Bereiche (Open Hardware Design) eingehen. Die Veranstaltung wird vermutlich in Englisch geführt, da Michel Bauwens, der Gründer der P2P Foundation dort sein wird.
This evening I’ll participate at the Creative Commons CCalps Salon an event in the context of the Paraflows Festival with the topic Open Everything. I’ll talk about applying the principles of Open Source we know from software development to other areas (like Open Hardware design). The event will probably be in english since Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation will be there.

Zitat aus der Ankündigung (only in german, sorry):

Nur wenige Menschen sind in der Lage die Frage "Was ist open everything eigentlich?" auf befriedigende Weise zu beantworten, der Überblick, der durch die mind map präsentiert wird, bildet die Basis für die eigentliche Erklärung. Daher hat der (cc)alpsSalon MICHEL BAUWENS eingeladen, diese Frage zu beantworten und einen Überblick über vergangene und gegenwärtige Entwicklungen in Zusammenhang mit dieser Idee zu geben und die Potentiale aufzuzeigen die für jeden gegeben sind, der/die offene Materialien, Quellen, Designs – einfach alles – anbietet und nützt.
Eine der beeindruckendsten Ausführungen dieses Ethos ist open source ecology (OSE), ein Projekt, das darauf abzielt eine open source Gemeinschaft zu schaffen, die sich auf Nachhaltigkeit, ökologische Verantwortung und die Freiheit des Individuums gründet. FRANZ NAHRADA wird diese innovative Idee genauer darstellen und wird dabei zeigen, wie das Konzept des open everything in Gemeinschaften realisiert werden kann, die willens sind Offenheit tagtäglich zu leben.
Gesellschaft wird durch viele Faktoren beeinflusst, Kultur und Technologie sind zwei der entscheidendsten. Die technische Seite von open everything bildet die Basis für eine Kultur der "Macher", die einen Wechsel von Massenproduktion hin zu selbst gemachten oder selbst entworfenen Produkten kennzeichnet. Diese do it yourself (DIY) Kultur ist abhängig von den Verbesserungen, die durch das Teilen von Erfahrungen und Ideen entstehen. RALF SCHLATTERBECK zeigt uns, wie diese Gemeinschaft funktioniert und wie sie vom Ethos des open everything profitiert.
Wann/when: 2009-09-11 19:30 Wo/where: Quartier für digitale Kultur, Quartier 21, Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Wien

Seit kurzer Zeit habe ich für meinen Sohn einen Telefonvertrag mit Orange. Der Vertrag beinhaltet 1GB Internet Download. Auf den letzten beiden Rechnungen schienen kostenpflichtige Downloads von sms.at auf, in der Serviceabrechnung steht unter der Rubrik "Folgende Rabatte wurden berücksichtigt" unter "1 GB inkludiertes Datenvolumen" für 255MB eine Gutschrift von 3.285,97 Euro. Das lässt ungefähr erahnen, was für eine Kostenlawine bei Überschreitung des monatlichen Datenvolumens auf einen zukommt.
Nun wollte ich also sowohl kostenpflichtige Internet-Downloads als auch eine Sperre bei Erreichen der 1GB Grenze bei der Orange Hotline einstellen lassen. Die Auskunft: Das ist leider nicht möglich, wir können aber das Internet ganz sperren. Das hab ich jetzt gemacht, ist aber eine wirklich unbefriedigende Lösung.
Hallo Orange: Ihr schafft es ja (zugegeben von RTR vorgeschrieben) auch, sogenannte Mehrwert-Rufnummern zu sperren — ohne dass man gleich das Telefon abmelden muss. Warum nicht auch kostenpflichtige Internet-Seiten? Es muss ja eine Geschäftsbeziehung zwischen Orange und sms.at geben, sonst könnte sms.at ja nicht über Orange abrechnen.
Und eine Beschränkung der Internet-Bandbreite ist bei vielen brauchbaren Providern auch problemlos möglich.
Also wünsche ich mir von Euch diesbezüglich eine Verbesserung. Sonst wechseln wir halt bei nächster Gelegenheit wieder mal den Anbieter.

In the following I’ll describe how to setup asterisk to log via ODBC to a remote Microsoft SQL server — I needed this for a client. I’m using a Debian server, file location may differ for your brand of linux distribution.
The following packages exist for debian, the ones needed are marked with “NEEDED”
A good introduction to the Free TDS implementation of ODBC is the userguide of FreeTDS

Debian FreeTDS packages

• freetds-common – configuration files for FreeTDS SQL client libraries: NEEDED
• freetds-dev – MS SQL and Sybase client library (static libs and headers)
• gda2-sybase – FreeTDS backend plugin for GNOME Data Access library for GNOME2
• libct4 – libraries for connecting to MS SQL and Sybase SQL servers, needed only for sqsh for testing, gets automatically installed with sqsh.
• libdbd-freetds – Freetds database server driver for libdbi
• libsybdb5 – libraries for connecting to MS SQL and Sybase SQL servers
• sqlrelay-freetds – SQL Relay FreeTDS (Sybase and MS SQL Server) connection daemon
• sqsh – commandline SQL client for MS SQL and Sybase servers depends on libct4: Good for testing
• tdsodbc – ODBC driver for connecting to MS SQL and Sybase SQL servers “This package includes the ODBC driver for FreeTDS, for use with UnixODBC or iODBC.”: NEEDED

FreeTDS Needs either unixodbc or iodbc, both are ODBC implementations for Linux/Unix. Asterisk is built against unixodbc.
iodbc packages:

• iodbc – GTK+ config frontend for the iODBC Driver Manager
• libiodbc2 – iODBC Driver Manager
• libiodbc2-dev – iODBC Driver Manager (development files)

unixodbc packages:

• unixodbc – ODBC tools libraries depends on odbcinst1debian1: NEEDED
• unixodbc-bin – Graphical tools for ODBC management and browsing
• unixodbc-dev – ODBC libraries for UNIX (development files)

common packages for debian:

• odbcinst1debian1 – Support library and helper program for accessing odbc ini files: NEEDED

Asterisk depends on unixodbc which should be already installed, so we install the following packages (ignoring any warnings about already-installed packages):

apt-get install unixodbc sqsh tdsodbc

Other Software using ODBC

• Python seems to have its own access module for MS-SQL:
  python-pymssql – Python database access for MS SQL server and Sybase

Configuraton for Asterisk Logging

• /etc/freetds/freetds.conf

  
  [global]
          # TDS protocol version
  ;       tds version = 4.2
  
          # Whether to write a TDSDUMP file for diagnostic purposes
          # (setting this to /tmp is insecure on a multi-user system)
  ;       dump file = /tmp/freetds.log
  ;       debug flags = 0xffff
  
          # Command and connection timeouts
  ;       timeout = 10
  ;       connect timeout = 10
  
          # If you get out-of-memory errors, it may mean that your client
          # is trying to allocate a huge buffer for a TEXT field.
          # Try setting 'text size' to a more reasonable limit
          text size = 64512
  
  [logserver]
          host = 172.23.23.4
          port = 1433
          tds version = 8.0
  

• /etc/odbcinst.ini

  
  [FreeTDS]
  Description = FreeTDS ODBC driver for MSSQL
  Driver = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so
  Setup = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsS.so
  

• /etc/odbc.ini

  
  [ODBC Data Sources]
  logserver = MSSQL Log-Server for Asterisk
  
  [logserver]
  description = MSSQL Log-Server for Asterisk
  driver      = /usr/lib/odbc/libtdsodbc.so
  servername  = logserver
  language = us_english
  trace = no
  tracefile = /root/mssql.trace
  

• /etc/asterisk/cdr_odbc.conf

  
  [global]
  dsn=logserver
  username=asterisk
  password=VERYSECRET
  loguniqueid=yes
  dispositionstring=yes
  table=cdr              ;"cdr" is default table name
  usegmtime=no             ; set to "yes" to log in GMT
  

• Test using isql

  # isql logserver asterisk "VERYSECRET" -v
  +---------------------------------------+
  | Connected!                            |
  |                                       |
  | sql-statement                         |
  | help [tablename]                      |
  | quit                                  |
  |                                       |
  +---------------------------------------+
  SQL> select * from cdr;
  [output of current cdr table]