JJ354
December 3, 2020, 9:00am
#1
Hi, I’m having issues unlocking my nitrokey. I have used multiple firmware versions and updated the app using the nitrokey repository (v1.4). I used my nitrokey just yesterday or the day before, it has the password to my main email, my steam account, password manager etc so I can’t perform a factory reset. When I insert it into the USB port the app starts, all seems fine until I go to unlock the password safe or encrypted volume, it says I have 77 password attempts left and I have a communication error after 1 password attempt. I have then have mutliple notifications one after the other in the system tray to say that the nitrokey is disconnected.
It says the smartcard is inaccessible so I’m guessing this is the main problem but I don’t know enough to resolve this. I should mention I am running Linux Mint 20 but I have also tried the same on a pop os 20.10 install on my laptop aswell and it is the same on there.
Hi!
It looks like OS is trying to use the smart card concurrently with the device, and this makes the internal communication failure. Please try with common OS smart card services disabled, reinsert the device and try again. To do the former please run the following in a terminal:
# for OpenSC
sudo systemctl stop pcsd pcscd.socket
# for GnuPG
gpgconf --kill all
I see you are using v0.53. Perhaps the latest firmware (v0.54) would help. Please check.
JJ354
December 8, 2020, 9:06am
#3
Hi thanks for replying,
JJ354
December 11, 2020, 2:38pm
#4
I’ve also installed windows to see if that resolved the issue but to no avail. Pretty disappointed, my main email address and my Bitwarden password manager are no longer accessible because of this. I’ll have to make new accounts and rely on good olde pen and paper for my passwords instead. Kind of annoyed considering the nitrokey storage costs £110, I have only had a handful of months and its bricked already and my passwords gone with it. Only option I see is wiping it at this point.
I think wiping it would be an overkill, as @szszszsz mentioned, it indeed looks rather like there are two (or maybe more) apps that try to access it simultaneously and it’s a known problem that smart cards don’t handle that well.
Make sure you kill the Nitrokey App
Make sure you kill the OpenSC and GnuPG processes as described earlier
Unplug the token
Plug it back in
Start the Nitrokey App
Try unlocking the password safe or the volume
If it still exhibits those issues - create a full list of processes running with details (e.g. by “ps auxwwf > /tmp/proclist.txt”) and share it here, maybe there’s something else that interferes…
JJ354
December 17, 2020, 1:05pm
#6
Hi alt3r-3go thanks for replying, I have tried what you said but it’s still the same, here is the output of proclist .txt:
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
JJ354
December 20, 2020, 9:45pm
#7
I was finally able to get into my nitrokey storage but unfortunately all my passwords have been wiped which sucks, I’ve lost access to my bitwarden and main email so lesson learnt I guess, I should have had them passwords written down. I had had the original passwords written down but I had to change them to put them in the nitrokey safe because they exceeded 20 characters and I just never got round to writing the new ones down. Thanks for your help anyway.
JJ354
December 20, 2020, 9:54pm
#8
Actually after plugging it in a second time I’m getting the exact same issue, soon as the app loads and the nitrokey connected notification comes on the nitrokey displays a red light and I have 77 attempts to get my password, when I put in the password it says there been a communication error. Just insult to injury at this point lol. Don’t know whats going on with it, seems faulty to me.
In general, I see at least a couple of processes that may be trying to get to the token/smartcard inside:
/usr/libexec/gsd-smartcard
/usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon
But indeed if you’re sure the password safe got wiped (though I don’t think there’s a “self destruction” feature, do you mean that you tried to reset it when troubleshooting?), then it probably doesn’t matter much right now.
JJ354
December 27, 2020, 9:24am
#10
Well I managed to open the password safe once since I’ve had this issue and all the passwords slots were empty so its completely bricked it. I did try several different firmware versions so whether I made a mistake I don’t know, point is I’ve lost my passwords and now I can’t even access the damn thing. How would I stop them processes you mentioned?
Hard to say, sorry, but based on the names they’re part of GNOME, so you could probably read up on that…
