PCSC_SCAN(1)

✨ PCSC_SCAN(1) ✨ — the General Commands Manual glow-up 💅

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the manual page for pcsc_scan, and it lives in section 1 of the General Commands Manual. she's a little icon, she's a little workhorse, and by the end of this you're gonna be obsessed. 🫶

---

🌸 NAME 🌸

pcsc_scan — regularly scans every PC/SC readers connected to the host

---

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

pcsc_scan [options]

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

This manual page documents the pcsc_scan command. (Yes, we're documenting the thing you're reading about. Very meta. Very demure.)

pcsc_scan</p> is a program that regularly scans every PC/SC reader connected to the host and displays the status of the cards inserted in those readers. that's it, that's the job, and she does it flawlessly.

The normal way to exit the program is to use Ctrl+C. that's the exit strategy. no menu, no quit command, just the good old Control-C. 😌

When pcsc_scan is started it asks the PC/SC layer for the list of available smart card readers. The list gets printed. A sequence number is printed before each reader, so you can tell them apart.

Example, and yes this is verbatim, no edits:

 PC/SC device scanner
 V 1.6.2 (c) 2001-2022, Ludovic Rousseau <ludovic.rousseau@free.fr>
 Scanning present readers...
 0: Gemalto PC Twin Reader

When a card is inserted in any reader, some information is printed. here's the whole lineup of what shows up:

• date and time — like this:

Mon Oct  2 21:01:40 2023

• reader name — like this:

Reader 0: Gemalto PC Twin Reader

• card state and occurred event — like this:

Card state: Card inserted,

• ATR, in case of card insertion — like this:

ATR: 3B 82 00 86 1E

• an ATR analysis, printed if the ATR_analysis command is available — like this:

ATR: 3B 82 00 86 1E
+ TS = 3B --> Direct Convention
+ T0 = 82, Y(1): 1000, K: 2 (historical bytes)
  TD(1) = 00 --> Y(i+1) = 0000, Protocol T = 0
-----
+ Historical bytes: 86 1E

---

💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -h — print help. the classic. she's always there for you 🫶
• -V — print version number. flex the build, bestie.
• -n — do not print ATR analysis. Use this option if ATR_analysis is not available, for example.
• -r — prints the list of readers and then exits. in and out, no small talk.
• -c — prints the list of cards and then exits.
• -s — stress mode. Sends APDU commands to the card indefinitely (until the card or the reader is removed). she will NOT stop. she will NOT chill. 👑
• -t secs — specify time program should run, in seconds. The program will terminate when this time has passed.
• -d — debug: prints what changed between .dwCurrentState and .dwEventState fields for each reader.
• -p — Plug and Play: force the use of the "\\?PnP?\Notification" specific reader.

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• pcscd(8)
• ATR_analysis(1)

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Ludovic Rousseau ludovic.rousseau@free.fr

---

and that's the whole page, no cap. this doc came from the pcsc_scan source, version vibes dated February 18, 2026 — so if you're reading this in the future, hi, hope your readers are all plugged in 💜✨ mwah, go scan something. 💅