Scute and SmartCard insertion/removal in Firefox

[Urs Hunkeler]

Hi,

I use the GnuPG card and have installed all the software, including 
Scute. I configured a server for HTTPS asking for client certificates. 
When the card is inserted before requesting the page, I get a request 
for the user PIN for the card, and then the certificate is exchanged 
with the server as desired, and everything works fine.

When the card is not inserted, my web application detects that no 
certificate has been sent and shows a login-failed message. If I then 
insert the card and reload the page, the card is not accessed and login 
still fails. I actually have to terminate and restart Firefox for it to 
use the card (shift-click on reload does not work either).

Ideally, I would like to be logged out when I remove the card and logged 
in when I insert the card. Mozilla provides an unofficial JavaScript 
object to detect card insertion/removal 
(https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript_crypto). The 
JavaScript code detects successfully insertion and removal of the card. 
Using mozilla's example script, when I remove the card, the page is 
reloaded, but displays an error message. I can probably hide the error 
message by verifying the connection in the background (AJAX) or 
reloading the page with a delay. However, when I insert the card, the 
page is still reloaded but the client certificate is not used.

Is there a way to reload a page and explicitly request that the 
SmartCard be accessed? Or do you have any suggestions for a work-around?

Sincerely,
Urs