I am in the process of implementing MFA in my production environment. As always, test any critical implementations and document thoroughly in your test environment. I attached the USB smart card reader HID’s Omnikey AG to ESXi host. From the ESXi host I can see the smart card being attached.

[root@localhost:~] lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0e0f:8002 VMware, Inc. Root Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0e0f:8002 VMware, Inc. Root Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0930:6544 Toshiba Corp. TransMemory-Mini / Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 Stick
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:a001 Dell Computer Corp. Hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0624:0249 Avocent Corp. Virtual Keyboard/Mouse
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 076b:3031 OmniKey AG

When I go to add the smart card reader as Host USB Device in Windows 10, it failed with the following message:

Reconfigure virtual machine
Status
 Cannot connect "path:0/1/0/4" to this virtual machine. The device was not found.

Resolution:

1. Shutdown your VM where your are trying to add or remove any VM configuration parameters. If you do not shutdown, the option to add configuration params will not be available under VM->Advanced->Edit Configuration settings.
2. Edit the VM settings advanced configuration
   1. Click Virtual Machines in the VMware Host Client inventory.
   2. Right-click a virtual machine in the list and select Edit settings from the pop-up menu.
   3. On the VM Options tab, expand Advanced.
   4. In the Configuration Parameters row, click Edit Configuration.The Configuration Parameters dialog box opens.
   5. To add a parameter, click Add Parameter and enter a name and value for the parameter.
      1. usb.generic.allowCCID | TRUE
      2. usb.quirks.device6 | 076b:3031 allow
   1. Click OK to save your changes and exit the Configuration Parameters dialog box.
   2. Click Save.
3. Go to VM->Edit Settings ->Add New Device->Add the appropriate smart reader