Jeff Krebs wrote, On 01/02/2008 08:52 AM:
* Tod Merley (todbot88@xxxxxxxxx) wrote:
On Jan 1, 2008 9:51 PM, Jeff Krebs <jkrebs@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Oddest issue with pcsc. I'm getting 100% CPU usage while running pcscd.
Now to story...
Finally got my CAC Card setup running and working. I'm able to do what
I need to do with PKI certificates and such. Athena reader, Athena
driver. Started with java-1.7.0-icedtea. Joy and happiness abounding
except...
IcedTea just wasn't doing it. CNN video wasn't working. Odds and ends
borked or not functioning.
Managed to get all SunJava 1.6.0r3 packages built and installed under
Fedora 8. Even the jdbc and fonts. My machine passed the Java.com test
and even updated the java applets (hadn't seen that before). Java works
wonderful, everything seems to function very well. Except...
Now, after removing IcedTea and installing Sun-Java, my CPU is at 100%.
Top shows pcscd as #1, burning over 91% of the CPU. This is a P4 1.6
Ghz, and I have 1.2 G of RAM. I can stop pcscd through the "Services"
configuration interface (via /usr/sbin/system-config-services). The
system CPU usage immediately drops to around 7%. Much weeping and
gnashing of teeth...
Now, the question. What's going on? Why does Java appear to cause a
race condition in pcscd? I can certainly disable pcscd when I don't
need it, but when I do need it, will I have to face high CPU usage?
Jeff Krebs
Hi Jeff Krebs!
I too do not understand what would make the smart card reader manager
go bonkers. Perhaps Sun's java makes it look for the CAC verification
module which perhaps it cannot find?
<SNIP>
I have never gone so far into finding the actual problem as these
tools can take us. Hopefully someone who has will chime in.
I would love to hear what you do find and how you found it!
Good Hunting!
Tod
I did find something after a bit of searching on-line:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=374291
I'm not sure that the issue is related to SunJava. The Fedora pcsc-lite
is currently at 1.3.3, and there have been five releases since then,
culminating in release 1.4.4.
On bugzilla, someone mentioned that 1.4.4 took care of the issue; I'll
roll my own pcsc-lite RPMs and see if that helps the issue.
Jeff Krebs
On the system where I experienced it, the problem was that the
ifd-cyberjack.bundle was being loaded by pcscd even though the reader was a
CCID reader (SCR331 or GEMplus USB). once `rpm -e ifd-cyberjack` and `service
pcscd restart` were ran, all was well with the system.
I think it is like the two options available for syslog ... load just the ONE
you need/want, not both. Granted someone made ifd-egate a requirement for
pcscd, which is just WRONG because pcscd does not need THAT ifd handler.
pcscd only needs the _appropriate_ one for the hardware you have (I may be in
a rarefied environment but the current standard for reader hardware seems to
be ccid).
BTW comment to bug added.
--
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter
