Image forming apparatus that can operate without wasteful use of resources thereof and unnecessary authentication

摘要

An image forming apparatus, method and system are disclosed, for acquiring a store document in the image forming apparatus and generating access authentication information. - The image forming apparatus can operate without wasteful use of resources thereof and unnecessary authentication. In the image forming apparatus, in response to an authentication request for a stored document therein from an external network device, first session information of a first session established within the image forming apparatus is acquired, the first session information is associated with second session information of a second session established between the network device and the image forming apparatus, and the second session information is sent to the network device. Then , in response to receipt of a predetermined process request using the second- session information from te network device, the first session information corresponding to the second session information is identified, and the first session information is used to fulfill the predetermined process request on the stored document.