Systems and methods for securely and transparently proxying saas applications through a cloud-hosted or on-premise network gateway for enhanced security and visibility

A method for providing access to an application, the method comprising:

• providing, by a device intermediary between a client and a server, access to an application hosted by the server, the access provided to the client via a link that generates a first hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request for the application;
• receiving, by the device from the client, the first HTTP request generated via the provided link;
• rewriting, by the device, an absolute uniform resource locator (URL) of the application indicated in the first HTTP request, by replacing a first hostname of the server included in the absolute URL, with a URL segment generated by combining a unique string assigned to the first hostname with a second hostname of the device;
• and
• redirecting, by the device, the client to the rewritten absolute URL of the application, wherein a domain name system (DNS) server for the client is configured with a DNS entry comprising an expression to cause the DNS server to resolve the rewritten absolute URL to an internet protocol (IP) address of the device.