smartcards: apache & openssl - internet explorer / mozil

[soulwarrior]

Hello,

I am a little bit puzzled how to solve what I try to do:

Idea: Clients should be authenticated to apache over openssl by a client-certificate.
I got it working on gentoo without a problem, well after applying a patch provided on bugs.gentoo.org (bug 25258)

Now I want to put the client-certificates on smartcards, problem:
I don't know yet how to do this

My basic understanding is that, the key (private&public) is generated on the smartcard, then the public key? is send out to be signed by a CA.
I think on Windows this steps are performed by Internet Explorer by contacting a CA.

My question: Is it possible to prepare the smartcards for the clients on a gentoo station and how should one proceed to do it?

many thanks,
soulwarrior

[soulwarrior]

I found everything I needed at www.opensc.org

If anyone wants more detailed instructions I could post them here.