Information processing system and program

Abstract

To provide a system configured to restore log items as needed depending on the failure.SOLUTION: A log acquisition program acquires an error code of an error having occurred (S10) and displays an input screen to receive an input of explanation for an error content from a user (S12). The log acquisition program specifies log items required for investigation of the cause of the error on the basis of the error code and the explanation of the user (S14) and receives designation of an item to be deleted, of the specified items, from the user (S16). The log acquisition system encrypts the values of the log items not to be deleted by the user, of those specified at S14, of log information on the error by predetermined encryption processing capable of restoring values of the log items and hashes values of the other log items (S20).SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present invention relates to an information processing system and a program. [Background technology]

[0002] One method for investigating the cause of a failure that occurs in a device is to analyze the log information recorded by the device. This analysis is generally performed by the device manufacturer or a maintenance service provider. Meanwhile, the device log information may contain personal information or confidential information of the device user, such as the destination of a document. Therefore, in order to protect the information of the device user, when the log information is extracted from the device, the information content is concealed by hashing or encryption. Also, in order to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, concealment may be performed when the log information is extracted from the device.

[0003] When hashing is used as a method of concealing information, the original information cannot be restored from the concealed data. Therefore, although the method of hashing and extracting all log information from a device is satisfactory in terms of protecting the confidentiality of device users, it is not very useful for analyzing the cause of a failure.

[0004] On the other hand, if encryption is used as a method for concealing log information, a person in charge of analyzing the log information can decrypt the encrypted log information to restore the original log information and perform analysis. However, if all items of the log information extracted from the device are encrypted and made decryptable by the person in charge of analyzing the log information, even log items that are not relevant to investigating the cause of the failure will be known to that person. Furthermore, if the person in charge of analysis were to know the contents of log items that are not relevant to investigating the cause, it would be subject to excessive responsibility in terms of protecting customer confidentiality.

[0005] As an example of a mechanism for protecting confidential information such as personal information, Patent Document 1 discloses a system in which encryption ranks and encryption methods are defined for each classification of confidential information, and information is encrypted according to those conditions.

[0006] Furthermore, Patent Document 2 discloses a method in which, when storing personal information data, attributes with a high level of protection are hashed, attributes with a medium level of protection are encrypted, and attributes with a low level of protection are left in plain text. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0007] [Patent Document 1] JP 2004-259202 A [Patent Document 2] JP 2006-189925 A Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0008] However, a method of switching anonymization methods according to the level of information is not suitable for use with log information extracted from equipment to investigate the cause of a failure. This is because there are various types of failures that can occur in equipment, and the log items contained in the log information that are useful for investigating the cause of a failure differ depending on the type of failure. Even if log items are uniformly divided into levels and the anonymization method for each log item is switched according to the level, the anonymization method according to the level may not be suitable for the type of failure that has occurred.

[0009] An object of the present invention is to provide a system that can restore necessary log items in response to a failure. [Means for solving the problem]

[0010] The invention of claim 1 is an information processing system comprising a processor, which identifies log items related to a failure among log items generated by a device when a failure occurs, performs restorable concealment on the identified log items, and performs non-restorable concealment on the other log items, and outputs the concealed log items.

[0011] The invention of claim 2 is the information processing system described in claim 1, characterized in that the processor acquires a code indicating the type of fault issued by the device when the fault occurs, refers to correspondence information that indicates the correspondence between the code indicating the type of fault and the log items required for analyzing that type of fault, finds a log item corresponding to the acquired code, and identifies the found log item as the log item related to the fault.

[0012] The invention of claim 3 is the information processing system described in claim 2, characterized in that the processor executes a process for displaying a screen for accepting input of an explanation of the content of the failure from a user when the failure occurs, finds a log item related to the input explanation, and identifies the found log item as the log item related to the failure.

[0013] The invention of claim 4 is the information processing system according to claim 3, characterized in that the processor receives from the user an instruction as to whether or not to allow restorable concealment for log items identified as being related to the input description among the log items identified as being related to the failure, and performs non-restorable concealment for log items identified as being related to the failure and for which the processor has received an instruction from the user not to allow restorable concealment.

[0014] The invention of claim 5 is the information processing system described in claim 4, characterized in that, for a log item identified as being related to the input description among the log items identified as being related to the failure, the processor presents to the user information on the degree of relevance of that log item to the description, and receives an instruction from the user as to whether or not to allow restorable concealment of the log item.

[0015] The invention of claim 6 is the information processing system described in claim 1, characterized in that the processor executes a process for displaying a screen for accepting input of an explanation of the contents of the failure when the failure occurs, finds a log item related to the input explanation, and identifies the found log item as the log item related to the failure.

[0016] The invention of claim 7 is the information processing system described in claim 1, characterized in that the processor presents log items identified as being related to the failure to a user, receives an instruction from the user as to whether or not to allow restorable concealment for the presented log items, and performs non-restorable concealment on log items identified as being related to the failure and for which the user has instructed not to allow restorable concealment.

[0017] The invention of claim 8 is the information processing system described in claim 7, characterized in that the processor identifies, as log items related to the failure, log items corresponding to a code indicating the type of failure issued by the device when the failure occurred, and log items related to an explanation of the content of the failure entered by the user when the failure occurred, and when presenting the log items identified as related to the failure to the user, also presents the degree of necessity of the log items in investigating the failure, and the degree of necessity is determined based on at least one of whether the log item was requested to correspond to the code, whether the log item was requested to be related to the explanation, and the degree of relevance of the log item to the explanation.

[0018] The invention of claim 9 is a program for causing a computer to execute a process of identifying log items related to a failure among log items generated by a device when a failure occurs, performing restorable concealment on the identified log items, performing non-restorable concealment on the other log items, and outputting the concealed log items. Effect of the Invention

[0019] According to the invention as defined in claims 1 and 9, it is possible to provide a system capable of restoring necessary log items in response to a failure.

[0020] According to the invention as defined in claim 2, log items related to an investigation into the cause of a failure can be made concealed in a restorable manner according to the type of failure.

[0021] According to the invention of claim 3, it is possible to identify log items related to investigating the cause of a failure from the description of the content of the failure entered by the user.

[0022] According to the invention as set forth in claim 4, the user can instruct that restoration is to be made impossible for a log item identified from the explanation of the contents of the failure input by the user.

[0023] According to the invention of claim 5, for a log item identified from the description of the content of the failure input by the user, information on the degree of relevance can be provided as a basis for determining whether or not to make the item unrecoverable.

[0024] According to the invention of claim 6, a log item related to the investigation of the cause of a failure can be identified from the description of the content of the failure entered by the user.

[0025] According to the invention as defined in claim 7, the user can specify which log items identified as being related to a fault are not permitted to be restored.

[0026] According to the invention as set forth in claim 8, it is possible to provide the user with information on the degree of necessity of the identified log item in the troubleshooting. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0027] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system configuration of an image forming apparatus. [Diagram 2] FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a processing procedure of a log acquisition program. [Diagram 3] FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of an error content input screen. [Figure 4] FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of an error log item table. [Diagram 5] FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of an instruction acceptance screen. [Figure 6] FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of the instruction acceptance screen in a state where some check boxes are checked. [Figure 7] FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a confirmation screen. [Figure 8] FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining concealed log information. [Figure 9] FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of an instruction acceptance screen in which a log item corresponding to an error code cannot be deleted. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0028] FIG. 1 shows an example of a hardware system configuration of an image forming apparatus 100 as an example of an information processing system.

[0029] The image forming apparatus 100 is a multi-function device that combines the functions of a printer, scanner, copier, and facsimile, and further provides advanced information processing functions with a built-in processor 102. The image forming apparatus 100 includes hardware elements such as the processor 102, memory 104, auxiliary storage device 106, image processing circuit 108, printer 110, scanner 112, facsimile modem 114, network interface 116, operation panel 118, and bus 120.

[0030] The processor 102 is a computing device that executes programs, and may include a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU). The processor 102 executes a control program group for the overall control of the image forming apparatus 100, a program for controlling each hardware element, an application program using the functions of the hardware elements and the entire image forming apparatus, and the like. The control programs of the image forming apparatus 100 include a program that receives a signal notifying the occurrence of an error from each part in the image forming apparatus 100 and executes a process corresponding to the error. This program controls the operation of the image forming apparatus 100 in response to the error that has occurred, and displays information about the error on a UI (user interface) screen displayed on a display on an operation panel 118 of the image forming apparatus 100. The control programs also include a program that records log data such as operations performed by the image forming apparatus 100, certain important events that have occurred in the image forming apparatus 100, and errors that have occurred in the image forming apparatus 100. The control programs also include a log acquisition program that acquires the recorded log data from a storage location and outputs it to the outside.

[0031] The memory 104 is a main storage device that provides a working storage area when the processor 102 executes a program, and is configured as, for example, a random access memory. The auxiliary storage device 106 is a large-capacity storage device that non-volatilely stores the program executed by the processor 102, data used by the program, or data generated by the program that should be stored. For example, a hard disk drive or a solid state drive is used as the auxiliary storage device 106. The above-mentioned log data is stored in, for example, the auxiliary storage device 106.

[0032] The image processing circuit 108 is a circuit that performs various image processing on images such as images read by the scanner 112 and images printed by the printer 110. The printer 110 is a device that prints images on paper. The scanner 112 is a device that optically reads images from paper documents and converts them into electronic image data. The facsimile modem 114 is connected to a telephone line and performs image communication in accordance with the facsimile standard via the telephone line. The network interface 116 executes control for communication with a network such as a local area network. The operation panel 118 is a system that accepts operation input from a user to the image forming apparatus 100, and includes a display such as a touch panel.

[0033] The devices described above, such as processor 102 to operation panel 118, are interconnected via a data transmission path such as bus 120.

[0034] Next, a flow of processing performed when the processor 102 executes a log acquisition program will be described with reference to Fig. 2. In this example, this log acquisition program is executed when the control program of the image forming apparatus 100 detects the occurrence of an error.

[0035] In this case, processor 102 acquires information about the error that has occurred from the control program (S10). The acquired error information includes an error code. The error code is a code that is uniquely assigned to each type of error (i.e., a fault) that occurs in image forming apparatus 100. Processor 102 also displays a screen on the display of operation panel 118 that accepts input of a user's explanation of the error, and acquires the explanation entered by the user on this screen (S12).

[0036] 3 shows an example of an error content input screen 200, which is a UI screen displayed in S12. This error content input screen 200 displays a message saying "Please enter the details of the problem," an input field 202 in which the user can input an explanatory text, and an OK button 204. The user looks at the message and operates a keyboard or the like on the operation panel to input an explanatory text of the error content in the input field 202. The explanatory text indicates, for example, the situation when the error occurred, what operation caused the error (i.e., the problem), and the like.

[0037] Next, processor 102 identifies log items related to the investigation of the current error based on the error code acquired in S10 and the user's explanation acquired in S12 (S14). The log information recorded by image forming apparatus 100 includes various log items, ranging from those not required for investigating the cause of the error, those with a low degree of necessity for investigation, to those with a high degree of necessity for investigation. Therefore, in S14, of the various log items, those with a certain degree of necessity for investigating the cause of the current error are identified.

[0038] To identify the error, the image forming apparatus 100 uses an error log item table. An example of an error log item table is shown in Fig. 4. In the illustrated table, the identification name of the log item required to investigate the cause of the error indicated by the error code is registered in the "item" column in association with the error code. As can be seen from this example, there are cases where multiple log items are required for one error code.

[0039] In addition, in the "Keyword" column of this table, keywords that are closely related to each log item are registered. Some log items have no keywords registered, while others have two or more keywords registered. If a keyword in the "Keyword" column is included in the error description entered by the user, the log item corresponding to that "Keyword" column is determined to be more than somewhat necessary for investigating the cause of the current error. In this case, that log item is identified in S14 as being related to the investigation of the current error.

[0040] In the example of FIG. 4, a logical expression related to a keyword can be registered in the "Keyword" field. For example, the logical sum of "user" and "account" such as "'user' or "account"" is registered in the "Keyword" field corresponding to the log item "UserName". In other words, if at least one of the character strings "user" or "account" is included in the description, the log item "UserName" is identified in S14 as being related to the investigation of the current error. In addition, for example, the logical expression "('fax' or "FAX") and ('destination name' or "recipient name")" is registered in the "Keyword" field corresponding to the log item "FAXDestinationName". In this case, if at least one of the character strings "fax" or "FAX" is included in the description, and at least one of the character strings "destination name" or "recipient name" is included, the log item "FAXDestinationName" is identified in S14 as being related to the investigation of the current error.

[0041] In this example, the degree of relevance (in other words, the degree of necessity) of each log item to the investigation of the current error may be obtained. As an example, the relevance may be divided into three levels, "high," "medium," and "low," and log items with "medium" and "high" relevance levels may be identified in S14 as being relevant to the investigation of the current error.

[0042] At this time, for example, the degree of association of the log item corresponding to the error code acquired in S10 is determined to be "high."

[0043] Also, if the description input by the user contains a character string that completely matches a keyword registered in the table in association with a log item, the relevance of the log item may be determined to be "high". If the description contains a word that does not completely match a keyword registered in association with a log item but is a synonym of the keyword, the relevance of the log item may be determined to be "medium". Here, the synonym of the keyword may be determined by referring to a thesaurus stored in the auxiliary storage device 106 or the like. If the logical expression in the "Keyword" column in the table corresponding to the log item is completely satisfied, the relevance of the log item may be determined to be "high". If one or more of the character strings included in the logical expression are converted into synonyms, the relevance of the log item may be determined to be "medium" if the combination of character strings in the description satisfies the logical expression. For log items that do not fall into either "high" or "medium" relevance, the relevance may be determined to be "low".

[0044] Returning to the explanation of Fig. 2, after S14, the processor 102 displays a screen showing a list of log items identified as being related to the investigation of the current error on the display of the operation panel 118, and receives from the user a designation of those log items for which restoration is not permitted (S16). An example of an instruction acceptance screen 220 that the processor 102 displays on the display in S16 is shown in Fig. 5.

[0045] 5 displays a message saying "The following information will be encrypted (recoverable). For information that cannot be encrypted, check [Delete]," along with a table 222 and an OK button 226. Each row in table 222 corresponds to each log item identified in S14 as an item related to the investigation. Each row in table 222 is made up of four fields: "Delete," "Item," "Value," and "Need for investigation."

[0046] The "Delete" field includes a check box 224 that can be turned on or off. The initial state of the check box 224 for each log item (i.e., the state when the instruction acceptance screen 220 including that table 222 is displayed for the first time) is off. Figure 5 shows the initial state, with each check box 224 in the off state, indicated by a white rectangle on the screen. When the check box 224 is off, the value of the log item is encrypted in a predetermined manner that can be restored.

[0047] Here, an overall picture of the concealment of log information executed by the log acquisition program of this embodiment will be described. When the log acquisition program retrieves log information in the image forming apparatus 100 to the outside, the log acquisition program conceals the values ​​of each log item included in the log information. There are hashing and encryption as concealment methods, and one of them is used for each log item. The encryption used individually is a reversible process. Therefore, the original value can be restored from the encrypted value by decryption. In contrast, since hashing is an irreversible process, the original value cannot be restored from the hashed value. In this embodiment, the concealment of the values ​​of the log items identified in S14 as being related to the investigation of the current error is performed by encryption by default. However, the user can specify on the instruction receiving screen 220 which of the identified log items the restoration of which is not permitted. The values ​​of the log items for which restoration is not permitted is concealed by hashing.

[0048] If restorable encryption is not permitted when the value of a log item is output to the outside, the user switches the check box 224 to the on state (shown as filled in black in FIG. 6) by a touch operation. Note that touching the check box 224 alternates between on and off, and vice versa.

[0049] The value of the log item in the log information generated by the control program in response to the detection of the current error is set in the "Value" field of table 222. For example, if the log information of the current error includes the log item "Device_IPAdress" and its value is "123.456.789.012", then it will be as shown in the record in the first row of table 222 in FIG.

[0050] The "necessity of investigation" field indicates the necessity of the value of the log item in question for investigating the cause of the error, and the relevance of the log item in question determined in S14 is set here.

[0051] In the example of Fig. 5, the log items "Device_IPAdress" and "PortNo" on the first and second lines were identified from the error code obtained in S10, and the value of "Need for investigation" is set to "high." On the other hand, the log items on the third to sixth lines were identified from the user description obtained in S12, and the value of the relevance calculated in S14 is set to "Need for investigation."

[0052] A user looking at the instruction receiving screen 220 exemplified in Fig. 5 checks whether there are any log items listed in table 222 for which the user does not want to allow restoration of concealed values ​​(in other words, for which the user does not want values ​​to be known to outsiders). If there are log items for which restoration is not allowed, the user touches the check boxes 224 for those log items in table 222 to turn them on (i.e., to blacken them out). Fig. 6 shows a state in which check boxes 224a and 224b for the third and fourth log items from the top in table 222 in Fig. 5 have been turned on. When the user has completed selecting the log items for which restoration is not allowed, the user presses OK button 226.

[0053] When the OK button 226 is pressed, the processor 102 deletes the log items with the check boxes 224 turned on from the list of log items related to the investigation (S18). That is, the log items related to the investigation identified by executing S14 earlier were listed in the table 222, but among those log items, the ones with the check boxes 224 turned on are deleted. Next, the processor 102 displays a confirmation screen 240, as exemplified in FIG. 7, on the display of the operation panel 118. The confirmation screen 240 displays a table 242 listing the log items related to the investigation that have not been deleted, together with a message that reads, "The following information will be encrypted (recoverable). Other information will not be restored." The user performs a final check by looking at the table 242 on the confirmation screen 240, and if there are no problems, presses a button 244. This determines that the values ​​of each log item listed in the table 242 are to be encrypted and restorable.

[0054] In addition, when an operation is performed in S16 to change the check box 224 from an off state to an on state, the processor 102 may display a screen showing a message to call attention on the display. The displayed message may indicate, for example, that the change will have a negative effect on the investigation of the cause of the error. The message may indicate that the more "need for investigation" a log item is, the more negative the effect will be.

[0055] Returning to the explanation of FIG. 2, after S18, the processor 102 performs a concealment process on the values ​​of each log item of the log information about the current error. That is, the processor 102 performs a predetermined encryption process that can be restored on the values ​​of the log items related to the investigation that remain after the deletion process of S18, among the log information about the current error, and performs hashing on the values ​​of the other log items (S20). The processor 102 outputs the log information in which the values ​​of each log item have been concealed in this manner. An example of data resulting from the concealment process (S20) is shown in FIG. 8. This example corresponds to the display contents of the confirmation screen 240 in FIG. 7, and the values ​​of four log items have been subjected to a restorable encryption process.

[0056] The output concealed log information is sent to, for example, a maintenance company that undertakes maintenance of the image forming apparatus 100. In this case, the maintenance company attempts to decode the values ​​of each log item of the log information, and for log items that have been decoded to meaningful values, the maintenance company uses the values ​​to analyze the cause of the error.

[0057] As described above, according to this embodiment, items of error log information that are relevant to investigating the cause of an error are encrypted in a manner that allows restoration as much as possible.

[0058] In the above example, a designation to delete (i.e., not permit restoration) all log items related to the investigation identified in S14 is received from the user. However, this is merely one example.

[0059] As another example, the log items identified corresponding to the error code of the error that occurred may be always subject to encryption that can be restored, and the user may not delete them from the list. FIG. 9 illustrates an example of an instruction acceptance screen 220A displayed in S16 of the procedure in FIG. 2 in this example. In the "Delete" field of table 222A of this instruction acceptance screen 220A, check boxes 224 are displayed for the third to sixth log items from the top, which are identified from the explanatory text entered by the user. However, check boxes 224 are not displayed for the first and second log items identified from the error code, and the value of "necessity of investigation" for these two log items is "essential". In this example, the log items registered in the error log item table (FIG. 4) in association with the error code are positioned as indispensable for investigating the cause of the error, and are always able to be restored.

[0060] In the above example, the log items corresponding to the keywords included in the explanatory text input by the user are encrypted so that they can be restored as log items related to the error, but this is only one example. Instead of such a keyword-based method, for example, machine learning may be used. In the machine learning-based method, for example, a large number of combinations of explanatory texts explaining the contents of the error in natural language and log items related to the investigation of the cause of the error are prepared as learning data. Then, the computer is trained to be able to output log items related to the investigation of the cause from the input explanatory text. The parameters indicating the characteristics of the computer learned in this way are stored in, for example, the auxiliary storage device 106 of the image forming apparatus 100. When the processor 102 executes the log acquisition program to execute S14 of FIG. 2, the processor 102 uses the parameters to identify the log items from the explanatory text. That is, the processor 102 configures a trained model using the parameters, and inputs the explanatory text obtained from the user in S12. In response to the input, the model outputs some log items as log items related to the investigation of the cause of the error. Furthermore, if the learning data also includes information on the degree of relevance of log items related to investigating the cause of the error, the computer can be trained to output log items related to investigating the cause of the error and their degree of relevance from the input description.

[0061] In the above example, the processor 102 of the image forming apparatus 100 executes the log acquisition program. However, as another example, the log acquisition program may be executed by a computer terminal that a maintenance technician connects to the image forming apparatus 100 for maintenance work.

[0062] In each of the above embodiments, the term "processor" refers to a processor in a broad sense, including general-purpose processors (e.g., CPU: Central Processing Unit, etc.) and dedicated processors (e.g., GPU: Graphics Processing Unit, ASIC: Application Specific Integrated Circuit, FPGA: Field Programmable Gate Array, programmable logic device, etc.).

[0063] In addition, the operations of the processor in each of the above embodiments may be performed not only by one processor, but also by multiple processors located at physically separate locations working together. Furthermore, the order of the operations of the processor is not limited to the order described in each of the above embodiments, and may be changed as appropriate.

[0064] (Additional Note) (((1))) A processor is provided. The processor, Identifying a log item related to the failure among log items generated by the device when the failure occurs; The identified log items are masked in a restorable manner, and the other log items are masked in an irreversible manner, and the masked log items are output. An information processing system comprising: (((2))) The processor, acquiring a code indicating the type of the fault issued by the device when the fault occurred; by referring to correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between a code indicating a type of fault and a log item required for analyzing the type of fault, a log item corresponding to the acquired code is obtained, and the obtained log item is identified as a log item related to the fault; 1. The information processing system according to claim 1, (((3))) The processor, executing a process for displaying a screen for receiving an input of an explanation of the content of the fault from a user when the fault occurs; determining a log entry related to the input description, and identifying the determined log entry as a log entry related to the fault; 2. The information processing system according to claim 1 , (((4))) The processor, Among the log items identified as being related to the fault, for a log item identified as being related to the input description, an instruction is received from the user as to whether or not to permit restorable concealment of the log item; Among the log items identified as being related to the fault, for which an instruction to not permit restorable concealment has been received from the user, perform non-restorable concealment. 2. The information processing system according to claim 1 , wherein: (((5))) The processor, presenting to the user information on the degree of relevance of a log item identified as being related to the input description among the log items identified as being related to the fault and the description, and receiving from the user an instruction as to whether or not to permit restorable concealment of the log item; 2. The information processing system according to claim 1 , wherein: (((6))) The processor, executing a process for displaying a screen for receiving an input of an explanation of the content of the fault when the fault occurs; determining a log entry related to the input description, and identifying the determined log entry as a log entry related to the fault; 1. The information processing system according to claim 1, (((7))) The processor, presenting to a user the log items identified as being related to the fault, and receiving from the user an instruction as to whether or not to permit restorable concealment of the presented log items; Among the log items identified as being related to the fault, for which an instruction to not permit restorable concealment has been received from the user, perform non-restorable concealment. 1. The information processing system according to claim 1, (((8))) The processor, Identifying, as log items related to the fault, a log item corresponding to a code indicating the type of the fault issued by the device when the fault occurred and a log item related to an explanation of the fault input by a user when the fault occurred; When presenting the log items identified as being related to the fault to the user, the degree of necessity of the log items in the fault investigation is also presented; the degree of necessity is determined based on at least one of whether the log item is sought to correspond to the code, whether the log item is sought to relate to the description, and the degree of relevance of the log item to the description; 2. The information processing system according to claim 1 , wherein: (((9))) On the computer, Identifying a log item related to the failure among log items generated by the device when the failure occurs; The identified log items are masked in a restorable manner, and the other log items are masked in an irreversible manner, and the masked log items are output. A program for executing a process.

[0065] According to the information processing system and program relating to (((1))) and (((9))), it is possible to provide a system that can restore necessary log items in response to a failure. According to the information processing system of (((2))), log items related to an investigation into the cause of a failure can be made concealed in a restorable manner depending on the type of failure. According to the information processing system of (((3))), it is possible to identify log items related to investigating the cause of a failure from a description of the content of the failure entered by a user. According to the information processing system of (((4))), the user can instruct that a log item identified from the description of the content of the failure input by the user is to be made unrestorable. According to the information processing system of (((5))), for a log item identified from a description of the content of the failure input by a user, information on the degree of relevance can be provided as a basis for determining whether or not to render the item unrecoverable. According to the information processing system of (((6))), it is possible to identify log items related to investigating the cause of a failure from a description of the content of the failure entered by a user. According to the information processing system of (((7))), the user can indicate which log items identified as being related to a fault are not to be restored. According to the information processing system of (((8))), it is possible to provide the user with information on the degree of necessity of the identified log item in the troubleshooting. [Explanation of symbols]

[0066] 100 image forming apparatus, 102 processor, 104 memory, 106 auxiliary storage device, 108 image processing circuit, 110 printer, 112 scanner, 114 facsimile modem, 116 network interface, 118 operation panel, 120 bus.

Claims

1. A processor is provided. The processor, Identifying a log item related to the failure among log items generated by the device when the failure occurs; The identified log items are masked in a restorable manner, and the other log items are masked in an irreversible manner, and the masked log items are output. An information processing system comprising:

2. The processor, acquiring a code indicating the type of the fault issued by the device when the fault occurred; by referring to correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between a code indicating a type of fault and a log item required for analyzing the type of fault, a log item corresponding to the acquired code is obtained, and the obtained log item is identified as a log item related to the fault; 2. The information processing system according to claim 1 .

3. The processor, executing a process for displaying a screen for receiving an input of an explanation of the content of the fault from a user when the fault occurs; determining a log entry related to the input description, and identifying the determined log entry as a log entry related to the fault; 3. The information processing system according to claim 2.

4. The processor, Among the log items identified as being related to the fault, for a log item identified as being related to the input description, an instruction is received from the user as to whether or not to permit restorable concealment of the log item; Among the log items identified as being related to the fault, for which an instruction to not permit restorable concealment has been received from the user, perform non-restorable concealment.

4. The information processing system according to claim 3.

5. The processor, presenting to the user information on the degree of relevance of a log item identified as being related to the input description among the log items identified as being related to the fault and the description, and receiving from the user an instruction as to whether or not to permit restorable concealment of the log item; 5. The information processing system according to claim 4.

6. The processor, executing a process for displaying a screen for receiving an input of an explanation of the content of the fault when the fault occurs; determining a log entry related to the input description, and identifying the determined log entry as a log entry related to the fault; 2. The information processing system according to claim 1 .

7. The processor, presenting to a user the log items identified as being related to the fault, and receiving from the user an instruction as to whether or not to permit restorable concealment of the presented log items; Among the log items identified as being related to the fault, for which an instruction to not permit restorable concealment has been received from the user, perform non-restorable concealment.

2. The information processing system according to claim 1 .

8. The processor, Identifying, as log items related to the fault, a log item corresponding to a code indicating the type of the fault issued by the device when the fault occurred and a log item related to an explanation of the fault input by a user when the fault occurred; When presenting the log items identified as being related to the fault to the user, the degree of necessity of the log items in the fault investigation is also presented; the degree of necessity is determined based on at least one of whether the log item is sought to correspond to the code, whether the log item is sought to relate to the description, and the degree of relevance of the log item to the description; 8. The information processing system according to claim 7.

9. On the computer, Identifying a log item related to the failure among log items generated by the device when the failure occurs; The identified log items are masked in a restorable manner, and the other log items are masked in an irreversible manner, and the masked log items are output. A program for executing a process.

Images