JP4730604B2 - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus.

  Some image forming apparatuses such as a copy, a facsimile, a printer, and the like are provided with a security mechanism that identifies a user to be used by performing personal authentication for the user to be used. Some image forming apparatuses have a function of connecting to a network such as the Internet and a function of using an external service via the network.

  For example, if the external service is a service that stores data in a server on the network, the document data is stored in this server, and the image forming apparatus that is set closest to the place where the meeting is held It is possible to access this server from the server, capture the document data, and print the conference material.

  However, if such an external service is to be realized, a problem occurs if anyone can access the server and view the document data. Therefore, it is necessary to receive personal authentication even when using an external service.

  However, when using such an image forming apparatus, first, the user needs to enter authentication information such as a password and a user ID to receive personal authentication. Further, when using an external service, it is necessary to receive personal authentication required by the external service. Even if personal authentication is performed in the image forming apparatus in this way, when accessing an external service, since new authentication information is input and personal authentication for each service is required, the user is required to perform complicated operations. Will be.

  As a technology that saves the user authentication, a technology has been proposed in which the service server and the authentication server are made independent, and the authentication server is commonly used by a plurality of services to reduce the operation for user authentication. (For example, see Patent Document 1).

  In addition, a technique for facilitating an authentication information input operation by automatically returning authentication information to an authentication server using an external storage device such as an IC card (see, for example, Patent Document 2). ).

  However, in any of the conventional authentication methods, it is not possible to reduce authentication processing operations when accessing an external service in an image forming apparatus such as an image forming apparatus that performs personal authentication.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-282804 JP 2002-123495 A

  The conventional authentication method as described above has a problem in that an operation for authentication processing when accessing an external service becomes complicated in an image forming apparatus such as an image forming apparatus that performs personal authentication.

  An object of the present invention is to facilitate an operation of authentication processing when accessing an external service in an image forming apparatus that is shared by a plurality of users and performs personal authentication of users to be used.

[Image forming apparatus]
In order to achieve the above object, an image forming apparatus of the present invention includes an access unit that accesses an external access destination via a network and uses an external service, and an authentication unit that performs personal authentication of a user when used. An image forming apparatus having
Authentication linkage information storage means for storing, for each external access destination, authentication linkage information for performing authentication processing for the external access destination in cooperation with personal authentication;
In response to an authentication request from an external access destination, authentication cooperation information transmission means for reading out authentication cooperation information corresponding to the external access destination from the authentication cooperation information storage means and transmitting it.

  Preferably, whether the authentication linkage information automatically transmits authentication information in response to an access destination information of an external access destination, authentication information including a user ID / password, and an authentication request from the external access destination. It consists of a set flag.

  According to the present invention, when the flag in the authentication linkage information stored in advance is set to allow automatic transmission, authentication is automatically performed without requiring the user to input authentication information such as a user ID / password. Is done. Therefore, a user who performs personal authentication when using the image forming apparatus can seamlessly access the external access destination without being aware of the authentication, and the external access destination does not require complicated processing. It is possible to use an external service provided by.

  Preferably, the authentication information in the authentication cooperation information is the same as the authentication information used in the personal authentication by the authentication means.

  Preferably, the authentication information in the authentication linkage information is authentication information given to each image forming apparatus from an external service.

  Further preferably, when the flag in the authentication cooperation information is set to disable automatic authentication, the authentication cooperation information transmission unit presents an authentication request screen to the user in a state where the registered authentication information is displayed.

  Further preferably, the authentication cooperation information transmitting unit is configured such that the flag in the authentication cooperation information is set to be unauthenticated and the registered authentication information is fixedly given to each image forming apparatus from an external service. If the authentication information is registered, the authentication request screen is presented to the user without displaying the registered authentication information.

  As described above, according to the present invention, when the flag in the authentication cooperation information stored in advance is set to allow automatic transmission, the user is requested to input authentication information such as a user ID / password. Since authentication is automatically performed without any request, it is possible to use an external service provided by an external access destination without requiring complicated processing from the user.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 shows a system configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The image forming apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment has an access unit such as a Web browser, and uses a Web service (external service) by accessing a plurality of WWW (World Wide Web) servers 30 via a network 20 such as the Internet. To do. Each WWW server 30 that provides an external service requests authentication depending on each service in order to provide each service when accessed from the image forming apparatus 10.

  The image forming apparatus 10 of the present embodiment is shared by a plurality of users, and has an authentication unit that performs personal authentication of the users when used. If this personal authentication is not normally performed, the image forming apparatus 10 cannot be used or functions that can be used are limited.

Next, FIG. 2 shows a hardware configuration of the image processing apparatus 10 of the present embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 2, the image processing apparatus 10 transmits and receives data to and from an external computer or the like via a Web browser 11, a CPU 18, a memory 19, a storage device 22 such as a hard disk drive (HDD), and a network such as a LAN. It has a communication interface (IF) 24 that performs reception, a user interface (UI) device 26 including a touch panel or a liquid crystal display and a keyboard, and a printing device 28. These components are connected to each other via a control bus 16.

  The CPU 18 executes predetermined processing based on the image processing program stored in the memory 19 or the storage device 22 and controls the operation of the image processing device 10.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the image processing apparatus 10 realized by executing the above-described image processing program.

  As illustrated in FIG. 3, the image forming apparatus 10 according to the present exemplary embodiment includes a Web browser 11, a display unit 12, and an authentication device 13. The display unit 12 in FIG. 3 corresponds to the UI device 26 in FIG. Note that, for the sake of simplicity, description of other functions provided in a general image forming apparatus is omitted here.

  The Web browser 11 transmits an HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) response in an HTML (Hyper Text Markup language) format obtained by accessing a plurality of WWW servers 30 via the network 20 such as the Internet. Is displayed on the display unit 12.

  The authentication device 13 includes an authentication cooperation information storage unit 14 and an authentication cooperation information transmission unit 15.

  The authentication cooperation information storage unit 14 stores, for each external access destination, authentication cooperation information for performing authentication processing for an external access destination such as the WWW server 30 that provides an external service in cooperation with personal authentication.

  Here, the authentication linkage information corresponds to the URL that is the access destination information of the external access destination, the authentication information that consists of the user ID / password combination necessary for the authentication of the service of the external access destination, and the authentication request of the external access destination. Authentication information automatic transmission flag indicating whether or not authentication information is automatically transmitted.

  As the user ID / password in the authentication cooperation information, the user ID / password fixedly given to the image forming apparatus 10 by the external service, or the user ID / password used when the user performs personal authentication in the image forming apparatus 10. One of the same user ID / password as the password can be selected and set. The authentication information automatic transmission flag in the authentication linkage information sets in advance whether or not to perform seamless authentication by automatically sending a user ID / password in response to an authentication request when accessing an external access destination. It is something to keep. When this authentication information automatic transmission flag is set to automatically perform authentication, authentication using the set user ID / password is automatically performed.

  Next, an example of authentication cooperation information stored in the authentication cooperation information storage unit 14 is shown in FIG. In the example of FIG. 4A, the URL of the external access destination is “http://192.168.1.101/app1/”, the user ID / password are “auth” and “*****”, and authentication information is automatically transmitted. The flag is set to automatically “send” authentication information. In the example of FIG. 4B, the URL of the external access destination and the authentication information automatic transmission flag are the same as those in the example of FIG. 4A, but the user ID / password is used for personal authentication of the image forming apparatus 10. It shows that the user ID / password used in the above is used. 4C and 4D are examples in which the authentication information automatic transmission flag of the authentication linkage information is set to “not send” in FIGS. 4A and 4B, respectively. It is.

  It should be noted that the authentication linkage information may be set only by a user having administrator authority of the image forming apparatus 10 or only by a user having administrator authority of the external service. May be.

  In response to an authentication request from an external access destination, the authentication cooperation information transmission unit 15 reads out authentication cooperation information corresponding to the external access destination from the authentication cooperation information storage unit 14 and transmits it.

Next, the operation of the image forming apparatus of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
When the authentication cooperation information is set in the authentication cooperation information storage unit 14, the Web browser 11 of the image forming apparatus 10 displays a link to the external access destination as an external access destination selection screen as shown in FIG. Then, the user selects an external access destination that provides an external service to be used from the displayed external access destinations. For example, in FIG. 6, when the user selects “external service 1” as the external access destination, the image forming apparatus 10 accesses the WWW server 30 whose URL is “http://192.168.1.101/app1/”. (S101). Then, the WWW server 30 that has received the access makes an authentication request to the image forming apparatus 10 (S102).

In the authentication device 13 that has received this authentication request, the authentication cooperation information transmitting unit 15 determines whether or not there is authentication cooperation information corresponding to the external access destination that has received the authentication request (S103).
Here, when there is no authentication cooperation information corresponding to the external access destination that has received the authentication request, the authentication cooperation information transmitting means 15 presents the authentication request screen shown in FIG. Prompts the user to enter a user ID / password used for authentication (S109). Then, when the user ID / password is input on the authentication request screen, the authentication cooperation information transmitting unit 15 executes authentication using the input user ID / password (S110).

  In the process of S103, if there is authentication linkage information corresponding to the external access destination that has received the authentication request, the authentication linkage information transmission unit 15 sets the authentication information automatic transmission flag in the authentication linkage information to be automatically transmittable. It is determined whether it has been performed (S104). The authentication cooperation information transmission means 15 switches processing as follows according to the value of the authentication information automatic transmission flag in the authentication cooperation information.

In the process of S104, as shown in FIG. 4 (a) or FIG. 4 (b), when the value of the authentication information automatic transmission flag is set to “send”, the authentication cooperation information transmission means 15 In response to the authentication request from S30 (S102), a request header in which authentication information consisting of the user ID / password in the authentication cooperation information is embedded is created, and the request is transmitted again (S105). In this case, no popup is displayed.
If the authentication method is based on the specification of HTTP 1.1 (reference: RFC 2616), the WWW server 30 returns a status code 401 (Unauthorized) as an authentication request (S102). On the other hand, the authentication linkage information transmitting unit 15 generates a request in which authentication information including the user / password is embedded in the Authorization request header field, and transmits the request to the WWW server 30 again.

Further, in the process of S104, as shown in FIG. 4C or FIG. 4D, when the authentication information automatic transmission flag is set to “not send”, the authentication cooperation information transmission unit 15 In response to the authentication request from S30 (S102), as shown in FIG. 8, a pop-up for inputting authentication information is displayed, and authentication information consisting of the user ID / password in the authentication linkage information is embedded as an input value. The state is displayed (S107). In this case, the request is not transmitted unless “OK” is pressed in the pop-up. The input value can be changed by the user. In the example of FIG. 8, the user ID is “michael” and the password is “*****”.
When an authentication execution instruction is input by the user (S108), the authentication cooperation information transmitting unit 15 transmits the user ID / password to the external access destination and executes authentication (S105).

  Then, when the authentication performed by the above processing is normally completed, the access is successful (S106), and the image forming apparatus 10 can use the external service provided by the external access destination. It becomes like this.

  In the authentication confirmation process of S106, when the authentication is not normally performed or when the setting of the user ID / password is insufficient (either one is not set), the authentication cooperation information transmitting unit 15 As shown in FIG. 7, a message indicating that authentication has not been performed is displayed, and an authentication request screen is presented to prompt the user to input a new user ID / password used for authentication with the external access destination (S109).

  Then, when the user ID / password is input on the authentication request screen, the authentication cooperation information transmitting unit 15 executes authentication using the input user ID / password (S110). If this authentication is successful (S106), the access is successful and the image forming apparatus 10 can use an external service provided by the external access destination. If the authentication is not successful, the processes of S109 and S110 are repeated.

  According to the image forming apparatus 10 of this embodiment, when the flag in the authentication cooperation information stored in advance is set to allow automatic transmission, the user is requested to input authentication information such as a user ID / password. Authentication is automatically performed without any problem. Therefore, a user who performs personal authentication when using the image forming apparatus 10 can seamlessly access an external access destination without being aware of the authentication, and can perform external success without requiring complicated processing. It is possible to use an external service provided by the other party.

  According to the present embodiment, whether to automatically authenticate to the external service can be selected according to the setting of the authentication cooperation information for each external service set in the image forming apparatus 10.

[Modification]
In the above embodiment, in the flowchart shown in FIG. 5, when the authentication information automatic transmission flag in the authentication linkage information is set to allow automatic transmission, the authentication request is performed with the user ID / password set in advance embedded. It is described as being displayed on the screen. However, the user ID / password is not personally assigned to each user, but is fixedly assigned to the image forming apparatus 10 and is used in common by a plurality of users. There are cases. Thus, when the user ID / password is fixed to the service, it is a security problem to present the user ID / password to each user even when automatic transmission is set to be impossible. In some cases.

  For this reason, the service-fixed user ID / password may not be presented in an embedded state on the authentication request screen even when automatic transmission is set to be impossible.

  FIG. 9 shows a flowchart in which such processing is added. The flowchart shown in FIG. 9 is obtained by adding the process of S201 to the flowchart shown in FIG.

  That is, if the flag in the authentication collaboration information is set to disable automatic transmission in S103, the authentication collaboration information transmission unit 15 determines whether or not the registered user ID / password is a fixed service. However, if it is determined that the service is fixed, an authentication request screen is presented in a state in which nothing is embedded in the user ID / password field as shown in FIG.

  By performing such processing, in the case of FIG. 4 (a) or FIG. 4 (c) in FIG. 4, a service-fixed user ID / password is used, so when presenting the authentication request screen, Since it is not presented with the user ID / password embedded in the user ID / password input field, and in the case of FIG. 4 (b) or FIG. 4 (d), the user ID / password for each user, an authentication request screen is displayed. In addition to the presentation, the user ID / password is embedded.

1 is a diagram illustrating a system configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the hardware constitutions of the image processing apparatus 10 of one Embodiment of this invention. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows an example of authentication cooperation information. 6 is a flowchart illustrating processing from access to authentication in the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a screen at the time of selecting an external access destination. It is a figure which shows an example of the authentication request | requirement screen shown in the state where authentication information is not embedded. It is a figure which shows an example of the authentication request | requirement screen shown in the state with which the authentication information was embedded. 6 is a flowchart illustrating another process in the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Image forming apparatus 11 Web browser 12 Display part 13 Authentication apparatus 14 Authentication cooperation information storage means 15 Authentication cooperation information transmission means 18 CPU
19 Memory 20 Network 22 Storage Device 24 Communication IF
26 UI device 28 Printing device 30 WWW server S101 to S110 Step S201 Step

Claims (1)

An image forming apparatus having access means for accessing an external access destination via a network and using an external service, and authentication means for performing personal authentication of a user when used,
Authentication linkage information storage means for storing, for each external access destination, authentication linkage information for performing authentication processing for the external access destination in cooperation with personal authentication;
In response to an authentication request from an external access destination, the authentication cooperation information transmission unit that reads and transmits authentication cooperation information corresponding to the external access destination from the authentication cooperation information storage unit ,
Whether the authentication linkage information automatically transmits authentication information in response to an authentication request from the external access destination, and access destination information of the external access destination, authentication information including a user ID / password is set. Consists of flags and
The authentication cooperation information transmitting means includes
If the flag in the authentication linkage information is set to allow automatic authentication, send the registered authentication information to the external access destination without presenting the authentication request screen to the user,
If the flag in the authentication linkage information is set to disable automatic authentication, and the registered authentication information is not authentication information fixedly given to each image forming apparatus from an external service, the registered authentication information Present the authentication request screen to the user while displaying
If the flag in the authentication linkage information is set to disable automatic authentication and the registered authentication information is authentication information given to each image forming apparatus from an external service, the registered authentication An image forming apparatus that presents an authentication request screen to a user without displaying information .

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