1334195 - Internet connection lost when PKCS11 smartcard module is accessed outside firefox

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: Security: PSM, defect)

Description

[nacho.vfranco]

What did you do?
================
1. Configure Mozilla Firefox to use a smartcard reader with the /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opensc-pkcs11.so module
2. Browse normally
3. Access smartcard module on linux terminal with pkcs11-tool


What happened?
==============
Network connection hangs if the above sequence is followed, keeping tabs forever on "loading". User Interface remains unaffected.

What should have happened?
==========================
Network connection should not hang.

Is there anything else we should know?
======================================
Normal closing does not solve the problem. A "kill" command must be issued in order to load firefox again.

Once firefox is loaded again, everything runs normally.

Comment 1

[nacho.vfranco]

Firefox version: 50.1.0
Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Comment 2

[Vlad Bacia-Mociran [:VladB]]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0

I have tried to tested your issue on latest latest Nightly (Build ID: 20170131110402) but I couldn't add the OpenSC PKCS#11 Module in the browser. The "no module specified. Please set PKCS11SPY environment." error was shown and also, I do not have a physical Smartcard device. 

Can you please retest this using latest Nightly build (https://nightly.mozilla.org/) and report back the results ?

Comment 3

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

Also, what version of OpenSC are you using?

Comment 4

[nacho.vfranco]

Sorry, haven't had time to test nightly.

I did however deleted my profile and fiddling again with the reader and pkcs11-tool. The issue doesn't happens everytime, but fiddling with "pkcs11-tool -lI", and occasionally plugging and unplugging the smartcard reader will eventually hang the browsing (although not the User Interface). After some time, Firefox will acknowledge the crash and send a report.

More info:

nacho@laptop:~$ opensc-tool --info
OpenSC 0.15.0 [gcc  4.9.2]
Enabled features: zlib readline openssl pcsc(libpcsclite.so.1)

I'm testing this with the Spanish electronic ID (DNIe) and a Gemalto SmartCard reader.

Hopefully I will find some time to test the nightly build.

Comment 5

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

This might be due to https://github.com/OpenSC/OpenSC/issues/683 (I don't think there's been an opensc release with that fix, unfortunately). Can you link to some crash reports? (see about:crashes)

Comment 6

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

(Actually, I take that back, 0.16.0 might have the fix)

Comment 7

[nacho.vfranco]

That's interesting...

A few things:
- I was not able to test Nightly. I sort of gave up trying to configure the menus in Ubuntu Unity, so I wasn't able to access the Security Modules configuration panel.
- On a computer with Ubuntu 16.10, Firefox 50.1.0 and OpenSC 0.16.0 I wasn't able to reproduce the issue!
- This is the crash report related to this issue: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/190f374e-2a35-4e44-abf3-40e4a2170126
- After updating Firefox via apt to 52.0, the issue is still present. I can't yet confirm a complete crash in this case, only a temporary lost of internet connection while the smartcard is inserted. Once I remove the card from the reader, Firefox behaves correctly.

Comment 8

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

(In reply to nacho.vfranco from comment #7)
...
> https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/190f374e-2a35-4e44-abf3-
> 40e4a2170126

I'm fairly sure that's due to the opensc bug.

> - After updating Firefox via apt to 52.0, the issue is still present. I
> can't yet confirm a complete crash in this case, only a temporary lost of
> internet connection while the smartcard is inserted. Once I remove the card
> from the reader, Firefox behaves correctly.

Even with opensc 0.16.0?

Comment 9

[nacho.vfranco]

On a computer with Opensc 0.16.0 the described issue does not happen.

On the laptop where I can reproduce the problem, the installed version of opensc is 0.15.0, which is the most up to date version available on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Comment 10

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

Sounds like this is due to opensc, then. I'll close this as "invalid", which is just an unfortunate way of saying "not a bug in Firefox". Thanks for your help debugging this!