Are you sure you want/need to use a Smart Card ? What characteristics or capabilities were you looking for that lead you to Smart Cards ? I simply wanted a way to log in securely to a work notebook used in the field that would obviate the need to remember a complicated and lengthy password. The Smart Card solution fell short of this requirement because entering the PIN on login failed to unlock the default keychain, so that several login services I rely on (automatic connections to remembered wifi networks, mounting of encrypted disk images) failed to work without the unlocking of the default keychain. I learned I could use the same PIN on my default keychain as used on the Smart Card during login to get around this, but this weakened the password on the default keychain too much. It also raised the issue that, should the Smart Card be unavailable, logging in would once again require the manual unlock of the default keychain. So, I discarded this workaround as unsatisfactory Hence my pursuit of a way to store Keychain Access-recognizable objects directly on the Smart Card, so that login services would have access to them when I log in with the Smart Card. My logic has led me to assume this to be the most appropriate way to solve this problem. So far as I understand it, the Smart Card cannot be used to single-handedly authenticate to every service that might have its password stored in the default keychain. It's true that, along the way, I've failed to understand quite a few things, and this has made things harder (both for me and for those who attempt to help). Hopefully we can move past that.