Nitrokey Start isn't recognised on Mac OS 10.14 nor 10.15

Nitrokeys
1

Hello everybody,

I received my Nitrokey Start device today morning and since then, I’m not able to use it. I followed the instruction in the official documentation (link), but the system simply doesn’t recognise the key. I tried on 2 Mac OS devices, one of them running version 10.14, the other 10.15, none of them worked.
I installed gnupg and gnupg2 as well, hoping one of them may see the NKS:
gpg --version
gpg (GnuPG) 2.2.17
libgcrypt 1.8.5

The gpg --card-status reports the following:
gpg: selecting openpgp failed: Operation not supported by device
gpg: OpenPGP card not available: Operation not supported by device
I read here, among the topics (link) that I should compiled and install pcsc-tools (current version 1.5.4), but the compile process failed.
What else should or can I do?

2

Hi!

Actually only GnuPG 2.x should be installed. Depending on how is this packaged, it might make a conflict in device access between these two.

Could you connect the device and attach please the result of system_profiler SPUSBDataType? This should list all connected devices in the OS.

3

Hi,

On the one I have in my hand right now only GnuPG 2 is installed.
The output of that command is:

system_profiler SPUSBDataType
2019-10-29 21:26:53.746 system_profiler[91495:735167] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be
USB:

USB 3.0 Bus:

  Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBXHCILPTH
  PCI Device ID: 0x8c31
  PCI Revision ID: 0x0005
  PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086

    Internal Memory Card Reader:

      Product ID: 0x8406
      Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
      Version: 8.20
      Serial Number: 000000000820
      Speed: Up to 5 Gb/s
      Manufacturer: Apple
      Location ID: 0x14700000 / 17
      Current Available (mA): 900
      Current Required (mA): 896
      Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
      Built-In: Yes

    Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:

      Product ID: 0x0274
      Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
      Version: 6.24
      Serial Number: D*******************
      Speed: Up to 12 Mb/s
      Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
      Location ID: 0x14400000 / 3
      Current Available (mA): 500
      Current Required (mA): 500
      Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
      Built-In: Yes

    Bluetooth USB Host Controller:

      Product ID: 0x8290
      Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
      Version: 1.68
      Manufacturer: Broadcom Corp.
      Location ID: 0x14300000
4

Try ioreg | grep Nitrokey in the terminal while the Nitrokey is plugged in. If you don’t see a text, the Nitrokey is not recognized by macOS. You don’t need any driver for this as teh USB subsystem will use a generic USB driver.

1 Like
5

Thank you for the suggestion. It seems the Mac (10.15) really doesn’t recognise the key. I successfully compiled and installed the pcsc-tool, running the pcsc_scan diesn’t show the Nitrokey while it’s plugged in, plus the ioreg also cannot find it:

Plug’n play reader name not supported. Using polling every 1000 ms.
Scanning present readers…
Waiting for the first reader…
peter@localhost:~/Downloads/pcsc-tools-1.5.4$ ioreg | grep Nitrokey
peter@localhost:~/Downloads/pcsc-tools-1.5.4$ ioreg | grep -i Nitrokey
peter@localhost:~/Downloads/pcsc-tools-1.5.4$

6

I got on a Windows 10 laptop, plugged in the Nitrokey and that machine also didn’t recognise the device. Nothing at all. No notification that something unknown is connected or a driver is missing.
Can be the device has a defect?

7

It looks so unfortunately. We do tests of each device after the production, but such devices are occurring from time to time.
Please contact shop@nitrokey.com (linking to this page) for further information.

Before that, a last chance test - I will run the same commands on my side to confirm, how the output should look like with the device inserted.

8

Confirmed these should list your Nitrokey Start (macOS 10.13.6):

$ system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep Nitrokey
            Nitrokey Start:
              Manufacturer: Nitrokey

$ ioreg | grep -i Nitrokey
    | |   |       |   +-o Nitrokey Start@fd130000  <class IOUSBHostDevice, id 0x1000005a9, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (8 ms), retain 24>
      | | | +-o Nitrokey Start@fd130000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000005ab, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (61 ms), retain 17>

AFAIK on Windows 10 there should be some notifications about connected device as well.

9

Thank you for the test and confirming my issue.
I sent an e-mail to jay@ and to info@ during the weekend, I’m waiting for response at the moment.