Some reactions on the thread : Integrating SmartCard in PAM is no problem. Problem I'm facing with for example CryptoCard and SecureID tokens is that those manufacturers refuse to give out any form of information about the internal operation of those tokens. That prevents me from implementing event synchronous mode. The best way to handle this with SSH is probably the way for example Apache and PAM handles those : Using DSO's that can be loaded from the config. Saves tons of #ifdefs and recompiles, but has some security related drawbacks, so I'm not sure if the OpenSSH core team is willing to integrate patches which implements those. I'm currenly beta-testing the OpenBSD port of the ANSI X9.9 extension, so that Challenge - Response is possible with OpenSSH protocol v1. Someone else is taking care of the v2 protocol. If there are serious thought on implementing SmartCard support in OpenSSH I'm more than willing to help. Regards, Igmar -- -- Igmar Palsenberg JDI Media Solutions Jansplaats 11 6811 GB Arnhem The Netherlands mailto: i.palsenberg at jdimedia.nl PGP/GPG key : http://www.jdimedia.nl/formulier/pgp/igmar