virtual USB device

[Grimes]

Hi there I am currently looking for help in writing a C# application that would 'trick' the OS into thinking there is a USB device connected. I would like to know if this is even possible and whether it is even possible in C#. Well, I'll explain in greater detail what I am trying to do. The company I work for has bought software that interfaces with USB devices (Smart card readers), we develop smart cards, and we also have several applications that simulate smart cards to test with. It would help us a lot if it was possible to let the software we bought interface with our simulators instead of the smart card readers. This is unfortunately not possible, their software can't be configured to communicate with anything other than smart card readers. I am hoping it is possible to create an application that is a virtual smart card reader, and this application would relay all the data their software sends to the virtual card reader to our simulator. (is this possible or am I living in a dream world?? which I tend to do a lot :) ). If this is possible, can it be done in C# or will I have to use WIN API calls? I have found many C# projects that have classes to communicate with USB devices, but I have not found any that emulates a USB device. Any help will be greatly appreciated or if you can point me to reading material regarding the matter, that will also help me a lot. :) Regards Riaan

KOM UIT DAAAAA!!!

[Rutvik Dave]

I am not sure but this[^] might be useful. (I think it's the reverse way...)

[Grimes]

Hi, thanks for the reply. That project looks very interesting, however it seems like they use a cellphone or some other mobile device that runs the emulation software, it seems like it is only a replacement for an actual smart card reader, so this is not exactly what I am looking for. thanks for the reply though.

KOM UIT DAAAAA!!!

[Bernhard Hiller]

There exist some virtualization softwares which let you access USB devices connected to a different computer as if they were connected to your local computer, e.g. http://www.fabulatech.com/usb-over-network.html[^]. Hence I think that your emulator should be possible, as the virtualization software somehow pretends the presence of a local USB device. But I do not know how to write it.

[Grimes]

Thanks for the Reply. I actually stumbled onto the same program, so I am also convinced it must be possible, but how remains the big question :)

KOM UIT DAAAAA!!!

[John Clegg]

I had a similar problem a few years back. The solution I came up with was to access the card reader through a DLL. For automated testing the DLL was replaced with a test version that allowed virtual smart card "images" to be inserted/removed (data stored in files one per virtual card). This also allowed testing without someone physically swapping cards. Of course you need to ensure that the release code can't be duped into accepting a test DLL+virtual card.

[Grimes]

This is an interesting approach to the problem I am having. I found C# libraries to interact with existing devices, I could try to forward all the Data that is sent to a card reader to our simulator. It's kind of a hack but it could work! Thanks for the reply!

KOM UIT DAAAAA!!!