Patent ID: 7123372

Claim:
An image forming apparatus administration system, comprising: an image forming apparatus, located in a first local network and connected to the Internet through a first firewall server of the first local network; an administration apparatus, located in a second local network and connected to the Internet throuoh a second firewall server of the second local network; and at least one relaying server, located outside the first local network and the second local network and connected to the Internet; wherein: the image forming apparatus comprises a transmitting section which transmits first information representing a state of the image forming apparatus to the relaying server; the relaying server comprises a relaying storage for storing the first information; the administration apparatus comprises an accessing section which accesses the relaying server to obtain the first information stored in the relaying storage; the administration acoaratus comprises a transmitting section which transmits second information to the relaying server, said second information being stored in the relaying storage; and p 2 the image forming acoaratus comprises an accessing section which accesses the relaving server to obtain the second information from the relaying storage, and the image forming apparatus is controlled in accordance with the second information; and wherein: the image forming anparatus administration system comprises a plurality of relaying servers, said plurality of relaying servers comprising at least one child relaying server including a child relaying storage, and at least one parent relaying server including a parent relaying storage; the accessing section of the image forming apparatus accesses the child relaying server through the Internet to obtain information stored in the child relaying storage, and the transmitting section of the image forming apparatus transmits the first information to the child relaying server; the accessing section of the administration apparatus accesses the parent relaying server through the Internet to obtain information stored in the parent relaying storage, and the transmitting section of the administration apparatus transmits the second information to the parent relaying server; the parent relaying server comprises a transmitting section which transmits the second information, which is transmitted from the administration apparatus, to the child relaying server, which stores the second information in the child relaying storage; and the child relaying server comprises a transmitting section which transmits the first information, which is transmitted from the image forming apparatus, to the parent relaying server, which stores the first information in the parent relaying storage.