Skip to main content

Your submission was sent successfully! Close

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates from Canonical and upcoming events where you can meet our team.Close

Thank you for contacting us. A member of our team will be in touch shortly. Close

  1. Blog
  2. Article

Alex Cattle
on 29 March 2020

Smart cards login on Ubuntu


Smart cards have proliferated and are now everywhere, from work ID badges to credit cards and passports. For example, the United States Federal Government uses smart cards to control access to federal facilities and information systems because they offer an extra layer of security and respond to strict government guidelines. If used in a company, these will provide identity confirmation, verification that data has not been changed, and confidentiality via encryption.

This whitepaper will provide information on how to configure Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to operate with a smart card to provide multi-factor authentication when logging into the system both locally and remotely. For the purposes of this whitepaper, a PIVKey smart card is used as an example since they are readily accessible and contain a few basic credentials.

Read our documentation or download the whitepaper to learn more including:

  • The software and hardware prerequisites needed for smart card configuration.
  • How to set up your smart card and configure it to support smart card logins.
  • How to configure SSH smart card login.

Download the whitepaper by filling in the form below:

Related posts


Stephanie Domas
24 March 2025

What is Application Security (AppSec)?

Hardening Article

Application security (or AppSec, for short) is a broad term that refers to all of the tools, actions, and processes that an organization uses to protect its applications against vulnerabilities across the entirety of its life cycle. Application security has one objective: to find weaknesses in your applications and systems that could be a ...


Henry Coggill
14 March 2025

What is System Hardening? Essential Checklists from OS to Applications

CIS Benchmarks Article

Hardening a system aims to decrease its exposure to make it difficult to hack, and to lessen the potential collateral damage in the event of a compromise. ...


Luci Stanescu
28 February 2025

How to conduct a vulnerability assessment

Security Article

The realm of information security is fraught with jargon, as anyone who has come across vulnerability-related terms can tell you. To complicate matters further, some of these terms are used interchangeably or in contexts outside of computing. This can muddy the waters for people looking to learn about vulnerability assessments – so in thi ...