About the legacy MDX Toolkit

The MDX Toolkit is an app container technology that enhances the mobile device experience. The toolkit lets you prepare apps for secure deployment with Citrix Endpoint Management.

Note:

MDX Toolkit has reached End of Life and End of Support on July 31, 2023.

Key facts about End of Life

We’ve transitioned from MDX to MAM SDK for Secure Mail and Secure Web apps. Although MDX Toolkit continues operational, we recommend you to use the MAM SDK for optimal support and user experience.

In case you need assistance transitioning to MAM SDK, open a Technical Support ticket.

For more information about MDX Toolkit deprecation, see Deprecation.

For more information about MAM SDK, see MAM SDK overview.

Recent announcements

• WKWebView Issues and Citrix SSO

  Citrix started supporting WKWebView for mobile productivity apps as of version 20.11.x, after Apple ended support for apps using UIWebView. WKWebView is an Apple framework that replaced the previously used UIWebView framework. Due to technical limitations and the complexities of WKWebView, some tunneling issues may occur with some websites.

  Citrix may be able to provide analysis and suggest modifications to the way you render your website on a best-effort basis. Ultimately, however, if you are experiencing issues, we recommend that you use the Citrix SSO app for VPN tunneling.

  For details about Citrix SSO, see Citrix Gateway clients.

• A Mobile Application Management (MAM) SDK is available to replace areas of MDX functionality that aren’t covered by iOS and Android platforms.

• The MDX wrapping technology reaches end of life (EOL) in July 2023. To continue managing your enterprise applications, you must incorporate the MAM SDK.

  For more details about the MAM SDK, see the Citrix Developer section on Mobile App Management (MAM) SDK. You can find more information as well in this Citrix blog post and in the MAM SDK overview.

  The MAM SDK is available for download when you sign on to Citrix downloads.

What the MDX Toolkit does

The MDX Toolkit adds the following information to the apps:

• The code required to support mobile app management tasks such as provisioning, custom authentication, per-app revocation, data containment policies, data encryption, and per-app virtual private networking
• Signed security certificates
• Policy information and other Endpoint Management settings

The MDX Toolkit can securely wrap apps created within your organization or third-party mobile apps.

You use the Endpoint Management console to add your app to Endpoint Management. When you add the app, you can change the policy configuration, add app categories, apply workflows, and deploy apps to delivery groups.

To download Endpoint Management components, see the Download page on the Citrix website.

The MDX Toolkit version 20.10.5 is the release available on Citrix.com. For details, see What’s new in the MDX Toolkit and Fixed issues.

Note:

The MDX Toolkit is not supported with Windows Phone.

About app wrapping

You can wrap Android or iOS apps you obtain from app vendors. With public app store distribution, you do not sign and wrap Citrix-developed apps with the MDX Toolkit. This process significantly streamlines deploying apps. Since the Endpoint Management server already supports deploying apps from the public app store, no server update is required. However, you can use the MDX Toolkit to wrap third-party or enterprise apps. For more information on public app store distribution, see Enabling public app store distribution.

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can wrap apps they develop and then make them available in an app store or the Citrix mobile productivity app gallery. For details, see the MDX Developer Guide

The MDX Toolkit combines app files (.ipa, .app, or .apk) with Citrix components and your keystore or signing certificate to produce a wrapped MDX app.

The MDX Toolkit supports the following third-party frameworks:

• Android and iOS apps developed on the Xamarin platform.

  Note:

  Apps developed using Xamarin.forms framework is not supported.

• Apps developed by using the PhoneGap (Apache Cordova) framework

We don’t guarantee that other third-party frameworks, such as Swift, work with the MDX Toolkit, unless explicitly stated.

The MDX Toolkit and XenMobile App SDK for iOS and Android includes the following tools:

• A macOS GUI tool that can wrap both iOS and Android apps.
• A macOS command-line tool that wraps iOS apps.
• A Java command-line tool that wraps Android apps.
• XenMobile App SDK: Third-party app developers can use the XenMobile App SDK to perform actions in wrapped apps based on Endpoint Management policies. For example, if an Endpoint Management policy prevents cut and copy in a mobile productivity app, a developer can prevent text selection in the app. For details, see the MDX Developer Guide.

The Mobile Application Management (MAM) SDK

With the move away from the MDX Toolkit, the MAM SDK replaces areas of MDX functionalities not covered by the iOS and Android platforms. Rather than wrapping third-party apps using the MDX Toolkit, you instead create apps using the MAM SDK. This method of developing apps allows you to call on the APIs directly instead of relying on a wrapper. For more information about the MAM SDK APIs, see the developer documentation for Mobile Application Integration.