Smart Card not pairing with Sonoma 14.2.1 on a MacBook Pro M3

Question

Level 1

8 points

Smart Card not pairing with Sonoma 14.2.1 on a MacBook Pro M3

Trying to use Microsoft Remote Desktop Beta App for Mac, see https://aka.ms/RDMacBeta. This had worked fine with my prior Intel-based 2017 MacBook Pro to which an encrypted Smart Card previously was paired.

In 2024, I migrated to an M3 MacBook Pro (Silicon).

In doing so, I was able to see the Smart Card was paired per command at Advanced smart card options on Mac - Apple Support which is sudo security list-smartcards. However, the M3 is not reading the Smart Card, so cannot connect.

So next, I unpaired the Smart Card using command sudo sc_auth unpair -u jappleeed. At which point, properly, no Smart Card was found.

When inserting the Smart Card to then re-pair it, the pair dialog does not appear, so cannot pair to the M3. Is this an Apple Silicon issue?

Note that I also run Parallels/Windows on the M3, and Windows does see the Smart Card independently and can connect to the required workspace.

I've been on with Apple senior support and the excellent advisor suggested I post here for help.

Posted on Jan 13, 2024 12:02 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,210 points

Jan 14, 2024 10:36 AM in response to gckmac

When inserting the Smart Card to then re-pair it, the pair dialog does not appear, so cannot pair to the M3. Is this an Apple Silicon issue?

I have had it ask to pair on an M2, but I don't have an M3. I have disabled pairing smart cards for my user (sc_auth function, I think) as it is superfluous for why I need a smart card. As far as I can tell, pairing it only makes it usable to log into that Mac user account, not for any other purpose.

Had you ever installed any drivers for the card or reader? Perhaps they no longer work with Sonoma.

Reply