Behavior of AssociatedDomains in applayervpn

hi!

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/applayervpn

I have a question about AssociatedDomains in the AppLayerVPN reference above.

From the description, I believe that this property triggers the VPN when the app is launched with a universal link and connects to the domain specified in AssociatedDomains.

Is that correct in your understanding?

I specified "twitter.com" as a test, and the VPN was not triggered when the universal link was executed from safari, etc.

How can I make a VPN connection with the domain connection specified in the AssociatedDomains property?

If you could please let us know with some real life examples.

I will pass on your thanks in advance.

Thanks.

Replies

The purpose of the AssociatedDomains key in the AppLayerVPN payload is to allow the OS to fetch the associated domain file for internal web sites through the per-app VPN.

As part of the associated domains feature, the OS fetches the apple-app-site-association file as described here. This will fail for sites that are only available through the per-app VPN because the OS will attempt to fetch this file on the regular (non-VPN) connection, the fetch will fail, and therefore associated domains for internal web sites will not work properly. By specifying the associated domain in the AssociatedDomains key, this fetch happens through the per-app VPN, making it possible for associated domains to work with internal sites.