Patent ID: 7971242

Claim:
A printing system including a plurality of authentication servers, a client communicable with the authentication servers, and a printing apparatus, the client comprising: an accessing unit adapted to gain access with user authentication information to any authentication server assigned among the plurality of authentication servers; and a print job output unit adapted to output, to the printing apparatus, a print job containing access restriction information sent back from the any authentication server in response to the access, the authentication server comprising: an issuing unit adapted to issue, to the client on the basis of the user authentication information notified from the client, an identifier of the authentication server and access restriction information having undergone an encryption process with encryption information held in the authentication server, and the printing apparatus comprising: a holding unit adapted to hold decryption information to decrypt the encryption process performed on the received access restriction information; a determining unit adapted to determine whether said holding unit holds the decryption information corresponding to the identifier of the any authentication server contained in the received print job; an obtaining unit adapted to, if said determining unit determines that said holding unit does not hold the decryption information, obtain the decryption information corresponding to the identifier by requesting the decryption information to the authentication server that is identified by the identifier; a verifying unit adapted to perform verification on the basis of the decryption information obtained by said obtaining unit or the held decryption information; and a job execution controlling unit adapted to control execution of a print job on the basis of the verification by said verifying unit.