JP2003006069A - Device management server - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a user to easily confirm more detailed information regarding an abnormality of a device by a browser about the device the abnormality of which is informed by mail. SOLUTION: A mail creating part 15 detects a printer the state of which is changed by referring to a printer information storage part 12, when the detected printer is equipped with an EWS (emergency warning system), embeds a URL of the EWS in a text of a mail to inform a state change of the printer and transmits it by using a mail address stored in an electronic mail address storage part 14.

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device management server, and more particularly to an embedded web server (EWS).
The present invention relates to a device management server that allows a user to easily confirm detailed information on a browser when an abnormality occurs in a device having a device. [0002] Conventionally, devices such as printers are monitored,
There is a service that sends an email to a set email address immediately when a device error occurs. There is also a service in which an embedded web server (EWS) is incorporated in a device so that a client can check the status of the device with a browser. [0004] However, when a client tries to obtain more detailed information on a device that has been notified of an abnormality, the client itself receives the E of the corresponding device.
I had to find and connect to WS. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a device management server that allows a client to easily confirm detailed information of a device in which an abnormality has occurred with a browser. [0006] In order to achieve the above object, an invention according to claim 1 is provided in a device management server for notifying a client of a status change of a device having an embedded web server function by e-mail to a client. A device information holding unit that holds device information relating to the state of the device in association with the identification information of the device, a URL holding unit that holds a URL of the embedded web server in association with the identification information of the device, and the device State change detecting means for detecting a change in state of the client, updating means for updating device information of the device information holding means for a device whose state change has been detected by the state change detecting means, and holding a mail address of the client. Address holding means and the device information holding means Detecting means for detecting a device whose device information has been updated, a URL obtaining means for obtaining a URL of an embedded web server of the device detected by the detecting means with reference to the URL holding means, and Mail sending means for sending a mail in which the status of the device detected by the detecting means is described in association with the URL obtained by the URL obtaining means, with the mail address registered in the means as a destination. And An embodiment of a device management server according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. A specific description will be given with the device as a printer and the device management server as a print server. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a printing system to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 1, the printing system includes at least a print server 1, a client 2 (2-1 and 2-2), and a printer 3 (3-1 to 3-3). The print server 1 receives a print job from the client 2 and allocates it to each printer 3 as appropriate. Client 2 is a personal computer (P
C), etc., for performing use of application software, access to the print server 1 and the like. The printer 3 is a printer under the control of the print server 1, and forms a print job assigned by the print server 1 on a sheet and outputs the image. Note that the printer 3-1 and the printer 3-2 are EW
It is assumed that the printer having the S function and the printer 3-3 are printers having no EWS function. Further, the numbers of the clients 2 and the printers 3 are not limited to these. Here, EWS (Embedded Web Server)
The function is a function in which a web server function is incorporated in a microprocessor-based terminal and can be accessed from a WWW (World Wide Web) browser. That is, the printer 3-1 will be described as an example.
As shown in FIG. 2, reference numeral 1 denotes a printer hardware 30 having a print output function of image data, a CPU 31 for controlling the printer hardware 30 to execute a print output function of image data, and various control programs executed by the CPU 31. It is a general printer including at least a memory 32 for storing and an input / output unit 33 for controlling network access to the printer 3-1. 32
The software or the firmware of the CPU 31 is provided by using the available space in the server, and is incorporated by transferring the HTML file via the input / output unit 33. Using this EWS function, the printer 3-
1 dynamically generates a web page on which information regarding the printer 3-1 is loaded so as to reflect the status of the printer 3-1 and provides the web page to the client 2 as required. Next, the print server 1 will be described. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the print server 1. In FIG. 3, the print server 1 includes at least a printer monitoring unit 11, a printer information storage unit 12, a printer information update unit 13, a mail address storage unit 14, and a mail creation unit 15. The printer monitoring unit 11 periodically checks the status of each printer 3 and notifies the printer information updating unit 13 of the status of each printer 3. Note that the printer 3 may voluntarily notify the change in the state. In this case, the printer monitoring unit 11 notifies the printer information updating unit 13 of the state of the notified printer. The printer information storage unit 12 stores each printer 3
Information on the status of (3-1 to 3-3) and EW
For the printers 3 (3-1 and 3-2) having the S function, the URL is held in association with the identification information (printer name, IP address, etc.) of each printer 3. For example, the printer information storage unit 12 stores and holds information on the status of each printer 3 as a table as shown in FIG. The printer information updating unit 13 updates the printer information storage unit 12 based on the notification from the printer monitoring unit 11. The mail address storage unit 14 mainly holds the mail address of the administrator of each printer 3 (3-1 to 3-3). Here, the user of the client 2-1 is an administrator. The mail creating section 15 refers to the printer information storage section 12 to create a mail describing the updated contents of the updated printer, and uses the mail address stored in the mail address storage section 14 as a destination. Send the created email. FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the flow of the printer monitoring process in the print server 1. The printer monitoring unit 11 acquires information on the status of the printers 3-1 to 3-3 (hereinafter, referred to as status information) (step 101) and notifies the printer information updating unit 13 of the status. The printer information updating unit 13 rewrites the status information stored in the printer information storage unit 12 for each printer 3 with the status information notified from the printer monitoring unit 11 (step 102). At this time, the printer 3 having different status information before and after rewriting can be identified on the printer information storage unit 12. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, “1” is set for the printer 3 whose status information is different before and after rewriting, and “0” is set to “0” for the printer 3 whose status information is the same before and after rewriting. Update Status ". Next, the mail creating unit 15 refers to the printer information storage unit 12 to search for the printer 3 in which the “update status” column is “1” (step 103), and “update status”. If there is a printer 3 whose column is "1" (YES in step 103), the identification information is obtained (step 104), and it is determined whether the printer has an EWS function (step 105). If there is an EWS function (YES in step 105), the URL is acquired (step 106). With the mail address stored in the mail address storage unit 14 as a destination, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, the contents of the status change of the printer 3 are provided with the identification information of the printer 3 and the EWS function. For the printer 3, the mail described in the text is transmitted together with the URL (step 107). The above embodiments are provided for the purpose of illustration, and do not limit the present invention. As described above, according to the present invention, when a failure occurs in the printer, the URL of the printer having the EWS function is also embedded in the mail body and notified to the user. The user can easily confirm the details of the failure of the target printer from the browser.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system to which the present invention is applied. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a printer 3. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of the print server 1. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a printer information storage unit 12; FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing operation of the print server 1. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a status change notification email created by the email creation unit 15; [Description of Signs] 1 print server 2 client 3 printer 11 printer monitoring unit 12 printer information storage unit 13 printer information update unit 14 mail address storage unit 15 mail creation unit 30 printer hardware 32 memory 33 input / output unit

Claims (1)

Claims 1. A device management server for notifying a client of a status change of a device having an embedded web server function by e-mail to a client, wherein device information on the status of the device is associated with identification information of the device. Holding device information holding means; URL holding means for holding the URL of the embedded web server in association with the identification information of the device; state change detecting means for detecting a change in the state of the device; and the state change detecting means Updating means for updating device information of the device information holding means for a device for which a change in state is detected, address holding means for holding a mail address of the client, and updating the device information from the device information holding means Detection device that detects a failed device URL acquisition means for acquiring the URL of the embedded web server of the device detected by the detection means with reference to the URL holding means; and the e-mail address registered in the address holding means as a destination, the detection means A device transmitting server for transmitting a mail in which the state of the device detected in step (a) is described in association with the URL acquired by the URL acquiring unit.