JP5174126B2 - Information processing apparatus and client apparatus - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique that eliminates the need for various setting operations for utilizing a service providing apparatus such as a printer on a network.

  In recent years, image processing apparatuses such as network compatible printers, scanners, and copiers are rapidly spreading as network infrastructure is improved. When these network-compatible image processing apparatuses are used, for example, taking a network-compatible printer as an example, an operating system that operates on the client, such as a personal computer, such as a Windows (registered trademark), is used. ) Install the corresponding driver registered and managed on the OS database, or install the driver provided from the printer vendor via a floppy (registered trademark) disk, CD-ROM, etc., and install it on the printer. It was necessary to set network information such as the assigned IP address, printer port, and print protocol to be used.

  However, in the above-described conventional example, the network environment is different from the network environment used so far, for example, the network environment of the office in the building A is moved to the office in the different building B, and is held by the client at the destination. When it becomes necessary to print a document, it has been necessary to re-execute operations such as installing a driver of a printer existing on the destination network and setting network information.

  At that time, it is necessary to first know the existence of the printer on the network, and it is necessary to obtain the network information such as the IP address as well as the information such as the printer vendor name and model name from the destination network administrator. The work required a great deal of labor and time.

  If the printer driver is not available, that is, it does not exist in the database managed by the operating system, or if the user does not have it in the form of an external recording medium, the printer is not allowed to be used. It was possible.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and in using a network-compatible device, a dedicated driver software for controlling the device is installed in the client and the driver software is set. The purpose is to make it unnecessary.

An information processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a generation unit that generates a web page for instructing a service providing apparatus to execute a service, and a first transmission that transmits the web page in response to a request from a web browser. Means, a first receiving means for receiving an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction for the service providing apparatus from the web browser, and a service to the service providing apparatus according to the HTTP request received by the first receiving means. An instruction means for instructing execution, a second receiving means for receiving a notification of completion of the service or an error notification from the service providing apparatus, and a notification transmitted before service execution of the service providing apparatus. Related error notification, and transmitted after service execution of the service providing apparatus That any one notification of error notification related to completion notification and the service providing apparatus is received by the notification in a to said second receiving means, HTTP to the HTTP request received by said first receiving means And a second transmission means for transmitting to the web browser as a response.

  As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, when a service providing apparatus on a network to which an information processing apparatus is newly connected is utilized, information for enabling the service providing apparatus is received from the network control apparatus. Since it is provided, it is freed from the trouble of installing special driver software in order to enjoy the service from the service providing apparatus.

It is the block diagram which showed the function structure of the network control system in one Embodiment of this invention. It is the figure which showed the flow of control operation | movement of the network control system in one Embodiment of this invention. It is the figure which showed the request format issued when the client in one Embodiment of this invention searches the URL of a server. It is the figure which showed the response format at the time of the server in one Embodiment of this invention returning URL with respect to a client. It is the figure which showed the request format issued when the client in one Embodiment of this invention makes a job execution request with respect to a server.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a network control system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, an application executed on the client side, a service implemented on the server, and a network-compatible printer are configured, and each functional module shown in each figure is configured.

  In this embodiment, the client side is an environment in which a general-purpose web browser 1, for example, NetScape Navigator supplied from NetScape, or Internet Explorer supplied from Microsoft can be executed, and the search script supplied by the present invention is described. Recorded HTML document 2 is recorded in advance.

  On the other hand, the network service, in this embodiment, the network-compatible printer has a TCP, UDP, IP protocol stack as a communication function, and an SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) control module 3 is mounted on the protocol stack. A processing unit that executes analysis of a request issued from the server and issue of a response in the present embodiment is provided.

  A print control protocol processing module 4 such as LPR, IPP, or Port 9100 is mounted on the protocol stack, and has a function of analyzing a printer request issued from a client and sending the request to the Printer Controller.

  In this embodiment, the server includes a TCP, UDP, and IP protocol stack as communication functions, and includes an HTTP 1.1 (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) processing module 5 on the protocol stack, and performs HTTP request analysis and response processing. . The upper layer has a discovery request SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) processing module 6 to be described later, and performs analysis and response of the SSDP request.

  In the present embodiment, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is used in the entity body part of the HTTP request in the request from the client, and the SOAP processing module 11 is mounted on the upper layer of HTTP 1.1.

  Further, the server includes an SNMP control module 7, and searches for network compatible printers on the network and acquires printer information. The HTML generation module 8 has a function of converting printer information that is currently available on the network into an HTML document format that can be browsed by the Web browser, based on data acquired as an SNMP response. .

  Further, the server includes a File Format converter 9, and in this embodiment, the document is generated by the application MS Office provided by Microsoft, and the document having the extensions doc, xls, and ppt, and the Adobe PDF format are described above. It has a function to convert to a page description language supported by the printer, acquired from the printer as an SNMP response.

  The server includes a print control protocol processing module 10 and supports three protocols of LPR, IPP, and Port 9100 in this embodiment. After conversion to the page description language by the File Format converter 9, the page description language is transmitted using the protocol supported by the printer designated by the client.

Next, the control flow of the network control system according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowcharts shown in FIGS. The server (network control device) acquires printer information existing on the network by broadcasting an SNMP Get request to the following MIB objects from the SNMP control module section based on a predetermined interval after startup. (step1). step1 corresponds to one processing example of the detection means of the network control device.
PrinterMakeAndModel: Printer vendor / product name PrinterName: Printer name PrinterLocation: Printer location IPAddress: Printer IP address SupportedPDL: Supported page description language SupportedPrintProtocol: Supported print protocol

  The network compatible printer (service providing apparatus) on which the above-described functional module is mounted generates information corresponding to each object in response to the request, and then transmits a response to the service as an SNMP response by unicast (step 2). . The server that has received a response from each network compatible printer compares each response content with the database content already registered in the recording device, and for newly detected printers, adds and updates the information acquired from the printer to the database. . If the printer is already registered in the database and no response is obtained from the printer, the printer information is deleted from the database (step 3).

  After updating the printer information, the server generates a list of printer vendor names, product names, and printer installation locations for all network-compatible printers that responded in the HTML generation module, and the IP address is hidden. HTML page with a GUI to select a document file to be printed and a script that sends the document selected on the page to the URL of the server's PDL converter processing unit as an HTTP POST request entity body Then, an HTML document describing a transmission button for starting transmission execution is generated (step 4). Step 4 corresponds to a processing example of the generation unit of the network control device.

  The process up to the document generation is repeatedly executed based on a predetermined interval, and printer information that can be printed can be provided to the client (information processing apparatus).

  When a general-purpose web browser is started on the network-connected client (step 5), and a server search HTML document recorded in advance in the recording device (recording means) on the client is opened from the browser (step 6), the document described in the document The script (program) is activated and transmits a packet for searching the server URL (step 7). The protocol used for the search uses Simple Service Discovery Protocol defined in Universal Plug and Play Device Architecture 1.0, and issues HTTP packets in the format shown in FIG. 3 to multicast address 239.255.255.250 port number 1900. .

  When the server provided in this embodiment receives the above HTTP request, it analyzes the ST (Service Type) header of the request, and if the ST specification other than Print is specified, or if the packet content is invalid Interrupts processing. Ignore the request without issuing a response. If the header content is Print, a response is issued by unicast to the client in the format shown in FIG. 4 (step 8).

  The Location header in the response records the acquisition URL of the HTML document generated by the server in the above process. The script on the client that has received the response analyzes the response packet, issues an HTTP GET request to the URL described in the header (step 9), acquires the HTML document (step 10), and after the acquisition ends. The HTML document is displayed on the Web browser (step 11). Step 9 corresponds to a processing example of request means of the information processing apparatus. Step 10 corresponds to one processing example of the reception unit of the information processing apparatus (corresponds to one processing example of the transmission unit of the network control apparatus).

  When the user selects a desired printer from the vendor name, product name, printer name, and printer installation position information of the available printer list displayed by the client's Web browser (step 12), the print target linked in advance is selected. A page describing a GUI for designating a document is opened, and a document file is designated on the page (step 13). Steps 12 and 13 correspond to a processing example of service specifying means of the information processing apparatus.

  After the specification of the document file is complete, the script issues an HTTP POST request to the server by pressing the send button described on the same page (step 14). Simple Object Access Protocol is used as the entity body of the HTTP request, and the printer information selected by the user is notified when document data is transmitted. The format at that time is described in the Envelope tag in FIG. 5, and PrinterMakeAndModel, PrinterName, and IPAddress (attribute information) are notified as arguments of the SelectedPrinter request. Step 14 corresponds to a processing example of the transmission unit of the information processing apparatus.

  Here, PrinterMakeAndModel is the printer vendor and product name, PrinterName is the printer name, and IPAddress indicates the IP address of the printer, both of which are information described in the HTML document received from the server. .

  When the server receives the HTTP POST request, it parses the HTTP request entity SOAP message, checks the contents of the PrinterMakeAndModel, PrinterName, and IPAddress that are arguments of the SelectedPrinter request (step 15), and any of the requests is managed by the server itself. If it does not match the information, an HTTP error response status code 400; Bad Request is issued for the request, and this is notified to the client side (step 16).

  If all the requests match information managed by the server, the server converts the received document into page description language data supported by the designated printer (step 17). After the conversion process is completed, the server sends the page description language data to the IP address of the printer PrinterName specified by the client using the print protocol supported by the printer registered in the database. (Step18). The printer executes print processing on the received page description language data (step 19). Steps 17 and 18 correspond to service control means of the network control device.

  Next, another embodiment will be described. If an error occurs during execution and a print protocol capable of notifying error information is used, the error content is notified to the server (step 20). When the printing process is normally completed and the print protocol capable of notifying the completion of the printing process is used, the completion of the printing process is notified to the server (step 21). The server that has received one of the notifications notifies the client to that effect as an HTTP response to the client (step 22). As described above, the printing process which is a feature of the present invention is completed with a series of processing sequences.

  In the above, an embodiment in which a printer is used as an image processing apparatus is shown. However, the image apparatus is an image processing apparatus having a scanner, a copying machine, and a composite function thereof. As long as the device can acquire the attribute information described in (1), it can be realized in any case.

  In the above embodiment, SNMP is used to search for available printers, but other protocols such as SLP (Service Location Protocol) can be used as long as the information can be acquired according to the present invention. This can be realized even when using. In the above-described embodiment, SOAP entity is used as a notation method of HTTP entity, but it can be realized by a description based on a unique schema.

  Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the server generates an HTML document based on the acquired printer information. However, the server is an XML-based document such as XHTML, and displays the content of the document on a general-purpose Web browser, and a script. It can be realized in any case as long as can be executed.

  As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, when using a network-compatible device, it is not necessary to install dedicated driver software for controlling the device on the client and set the driver software.

  Another object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium storing software program codes for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or apparatus, and the computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus stores the storage medium. Needless to say, this can also be achieved by reading and executing the program code stored in.

  In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

  As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a flexible disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

  Further, by executing the program code read by the computer, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, but also an OS (operating system) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. It goes without saying that a case where the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by performing part or all of the actual processing and the processing is included.

  Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written in a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function is determined based on the instruction of the program code. It goes without saying that the CPU or the like provided in the expansion board or function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

1 General-purpose Web browser 2 HTML document 3 SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) control module 4 Print control protocol processing module 5 HTTP 1.1 (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) processing module 6 Discovery request SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) processing module 7 SNMP Control module 8 HTML generation module 9 File Format converter 10 Print control protocol processing module 11 SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) processing module

Claims (16)

Generating means for generating a web page for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute the service;
First transmission means for transmitting the web page in response to a request from a web browser;
First receiving means for receiving, from the web browser, an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction for the service providing device;
Instructing means for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute a service in accordance with an HTTP request received by the first receiving means;
Second receiving means for receiving a notification of completion or error of the service from the service providing device;
A notification to be transmitted before service execution of the service providing apparatus and an error notification related to the request; and a notification to be transmitted after service execution of the service providing apparatus and received by the second receiving means; and Second transmission means for transmitting any one of error notifications related to the service providing apparatus to the web browser as an HTTP response to an HTTP request received by the first reception means;
An information processing apparatus comprising:   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the web page generated by the generation unit includes a screen for selecting a service providing apparatus.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the web page generated by the generation unit includes a screen for selecting document data to be executed by the service.   4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a communication unit configured to communicate with a client apparatus including the web browser and the service providing apparatus via a network.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the service providing apparatus is one of a printer, a scanner, a copier, and a multifunction peripheral. A client device capable of communicating with a server that instructs a service providing device to execute a service,
First receiving means for receiving from the server a web page for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute the service;
A web browser that displays the web page received by the first receiving means, and the service providing apparatus according to an instruction to execute a service on the web page displayed on the web browser A transmission means for transmitting an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction to the server;
The notification that is transmitted before the service of the service providing device is executed and is an error notification related to the request, and the notification that is transmitted after the service of the service providing device is executed and received by the server from the service providing device A second receiving means for receiving from the server an HTTP notification for an HTTP request sent by the sending means, one of a completion notice and an error notice related to the service providing device ;
A client device comprising:   The client apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising a communication unit that communicates with the service providing apparatus via a network. A method for controlling an information processing apparatus,
A generating step for generating a web page for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute the service;
A first sending step of sending the web page in response to a request from a web browser;
A first receiving step of receiving an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction for the service providing apparatus from the web browser;
An instruction step for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute a service in accordance with the HTTP request received by the first reception step;
A second receiving step of receiving a completion notification or error notification of the service from the service providing device;
An error notification related to a request that is transmitted before service execution of the service providing apparatus, and a notification that is transmitted after service execution of the service providing apparatus and received by the second receiving step, and A second transmission step of transmitting any one of error notifications related to the service providing apparatus to the web browser as an HTTP response to the HTTP request received by the first reception step;
A method for controlling an information processing apparatus, comprising: A client device control method capable of communicating with a server that instructs a service providing device to execute a service,
A first receiving step of receiving from the server a web page for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute the service;
A web browser that displays the web page received in the first receiving step, and in response to the service execution device being instructed by the user on the web page displayed on the web browser A transmission step of transmitting an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction to the server;
The notification that is transmitted before the service of the service providing device is executed and is an error notification related to the request, and the notification that is transmitted after the service of the service providing device is executed and received by the server from the service providing device A second reception step of receiving, from the server, an HTTP response to the HTTP request transmitted by the transmission step, one of the completion notification and the error notification related to the service providing device ;
A control method for a client device. A generating step for generating a web page for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute the service;
A first sending step of sending the web page in response to a request from a web browser;
A first receiving step of receiving an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction for the service providing apparatus from the web browser;
An instruction step for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute a service in accordance with the HTTP request received by the first reception step;
A second receiving step of receiving a completion notification or error notification of the service from the service providing device;
Error notification, and received by said second reception step a notification to be transmitted after the service execution of the service providing device a completion notification and related to the notification and a by requests sent before service execution of the service providing device A second transmission step of transmitting any one of error notifications related to the service providing apparatus to the web browser as an HTTP response to the HTTP request received by the first reception step;
A program that causes a computer to execute.   The program according to claim 10, wherein the web page generated by the generation step includes a screen for selecting a service providing apparatus.   The program according to claim 10 or 11, wherein the web page generated by the generating step includes a screen for selecting document data to be executed by the service.   The program according to any one of claims 10 to 12, further comprising a communication step of communicating with a client device including the web browser and the service providing device via a network.   14. The program according to claim 10, wherein the service providing apparatus is any one of a printer, a scanner, a copier, and a multifunction machine. A program for causing a computer to execute a client device control method capable of communicating with a server that instructs a service providing device to execute a service,
A first receiving step of receiving from the server a web page for instructing the service providing apparatus to execute the service;
A web browser that displays the web page received in the first receiving step, and in response to the service execution device being instructed by the user on the web page displayed on the web browser A transmission step of transmitting an HTTP request indicating a service execution instruction to the server;
The notification that is transmitted before the service of the service providing device is executed and is an error notification related to the request, and the notification that is transmitted after the service of the service providing device is executed and received by the server from the service providing device A second reception step of receiving, from the server, an HTTP response to the HTTP request transmitted by the transmission step, one of the completion notification and the error notification related to the service providing device ;
A program that causes a computer to execute.   The program according to claim 15, further comprising a communication step of communicating with the service providing apparatus via a network.

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