rfid-reader-http

PC/SC lite HTTP wrapper for reading from a card reader (RFID & NFC).

Tested card reader

• ACS ACR122 (ACR122U-A9)

Prerequisites

For running the installation step, due to its dependency from node-pcsclite, this project requires node-gyp, so please read carefully and satisfy their installation requirements, otherwise it may fails compiling the node module.

You may have to install the proper driver for your card reader.

• ACS ACR122U drivers

Requirements installation

Mac OS X

1. Download the ACS ACR122U Drivers for Mac OS X 10.x via the download page or via direct link for PC/SC Driver Installer 1.1.0 (Mac 10.5, Mac 10.6, Mac 10.7, Mac 10.8, Mac 10.9, Mac 10.10) (2014-09-17 306KB). You have to install it even if the installer is not properly signed.

   It will install the useful driver in: /usr/libexec/SmartCardServices/drivers/ifd-acsccid.bundle

Raspberry Pi (ARM) (Debian)

NOTE: At this time, Raspberry Pi 1 models have issue running NodeJS, due to wrong architecture identification (ARMv7 instead of ARMv6). This guide works properly on Raspberry Pi 2 (refence 1 2).

1. Install the latest version of NodeJS and npm, as stated in the official guide:

    curl --silent --location https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_0.12 | sudo bash -
    sudo apt-get install --yes nodejs
   

2. Install PC/SC and libnfc (references: nfc-tools, libnfc):

    sudo apt-get install pcscd libusb-dev libpcsclite1 libpcsclite-dev dh-autoreconf
   
    cd /opt/
    sudo wget https://github.com/nfc-tools/libnfc/archive/libnfc-1.7.1.zip
    sudo unzip libnfc-1.7.1.zip
    cd libnfc-libnfc-1.7.1/
    sudo autoreconf -vis
    sudo ./configure --with-drivers=all
    sudo make
    sudo make install
   

   Additionaly, you may need to grant permissions to your user to drive the device. Under GNU/Linux systems, if you use udev, you could use the provided udev rules. e.g. under Debian: sudo cp /opt/libnfc-libnfc-1.7.1/contrib/udev/42-pn53x.rules /lib/udev/rules.d/

3. Make sure the NFC reader is properly recognized:

    sudo nfc-list
   

   1. To fix: error while loading shared libraries: libnfc.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (reference)

       echo '/usr/local/lib' | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usr-local-lib.conf && sudo ldconfig
      

   2. If you have kernel version > 3.5, probably pcscd and also nfc-list will report this error: Unable to claim USB interface (Device or resource busy) due to the automatic load of pn533 driver.

      To read the pcscd dameon output you can run it using: pcscd -f -d

      1. Check which kernel version is installed: uname -a

      2. Blacklist pn533 and nfc drivers (references: Arch Linux wiki Touchatag RFID Reader, nfc-tools forum):

          sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-libnfc.conf
         

         Add the following lines:

          blacklist pn533
          blacklist nfc
         

      3. Disable kernel modules:

          modprobe -r pn533 nfc
         

      4. Restart the pcscd daemon: sudo service pcscd restart

Install

1. git clone https://github.com/goodotcom/rfid-reader-http.git
2. cd rfid-reader-http
3. npm install

Usage

• Run as process: node index.js
• Run in background (detached output): nohup node index.js &