Getting smartcards to work right has been difficult and now it's fubar again. I'm currently trying to figure out, exactly what changed with the upgrade to 21.04. So far I've found this:

> 
> **Smart Card Authentication**
> Smart cards are used everywhere, from Government offices to small companies. Smart cards add an additional layer of security by authorizing the person’s identity. Ubuntu 21.04 supports smart card authentication via pam\_sss.
> 
> 
> 

Info on pam\_sss: <https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man8/pam_sss.8.html>

Searching for instances of pam\_sss in /etc and commenting them out did nothing to help the situation, gdm still attempts to force smartcard authentication. I normally use pcscd (not for system authentication), but disabling pcscd does nothing to fix the issues. Something else is controlling the card and affecting the logon flow.

Additional details:
I've updated alternatives for /etc/pam.d/gdm-smarcard using:

```
update-alternatives --config gdm-smartcard

```

Selecting `/etc/pam.d/gdm-smartcard-sssd-or-password`

I have then edited this file, so that the line:

```
auth    sufficient    pam_sss.so

```

no longer contains the requirements for allow\_missing\_name or try\_cert\_auth, per the pam\_sss.8 manual page. No dice. Auth ignores my changes. If the smartcard reader is connected at login, it attempts to force smartcard authentication. The reader must be completely disconnected, or I am unable to login with normal username/password.