Avoid pairing the CAC to your Mac login (prevents lockout)

macos

Symptoms

macOS prompts to 'pair' the CAC to your account. If you pair and then fail PIN attempts, the CAC gets blocked.

Likely cause

macOS smart card pairing counts wrong PINs against the card's PIN counter.

Fix

Avoid pairing entirely - choose Cancel at the pairing prompt. If you already paired and want to unpair: 1. Pull the CAC. 2. Terminal: sc_auth list. 3. Copy the 40-character hash. 4. Terminal: sc_auth unpair -h <hash>.

Sourced from militarycac.com. Rewritten for clarity.

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