Port 710 is officially assigned to entrust-ash (Entrust Administration Service Handler), a protocol used for administering Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate authorities.
What This Port Does
Every HTTPS connection you make depends on digital certificates. Those certificates are issued by Certificate Authorities (CAs). Port 710 is how administrators talked to Entrust's CA software to manage those certificates—creating them, revoking them, configuring policies.
Think of it as the backstage entrance to the certificate authority. The public enters through the front door (usually HTTPS on port 443). The administrators who keep the whole operation running use port 710.
The Entrust PKI Ecosystem
Port 710 doesn't work alone. Entrust's PKI infrastructure used several dedicated ports:1
- Port 709 — Entrust Proto-PKIX, an early certificate management protocol
- Port 710 — Entrust Administration Service Handler (ASH)
- Port 829 — PKIX-CMP, the Certificate Management Protocol
Together, these ports formed the nervous system of enterprise certificate management in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
A Brief History of Entrust
Entrust Inc. was founded in 1994, right as the commercial Internet was taking off and everyone suddenly needed encryption.2 They became a major player in PKI solutions, providing the infrastructure that let organizations issue and manage their own certificates.
The company went through several transformations:
- 2013: Acquired by Datacard Corporation
- 2020: The combined company rebranded as Entrust
- 2025: Sold their public certificate authority business to Sectigo2
Port 710 is a fossil from the height of Entrust's PKI dominance—when managing a certificate authority required dedicated protocols on dedicated ports.
Why This Port Matters Less Today
Modern PKI administration has largely moved to web-based interfaces running over HTTPS (port 443). The specialized protocols that needed their own ports—like the one on 710—have mostly been replaced by REST APIs and administrative web consoles.
You'll still find port 710 in use at organizations running legacy Entrust Authority Security Manager installations. But new deployments rarely open this port anymore.
Security Considerations
If you see port 710 open on a system:
It's managing a certificate authority. This is extremely sensitive infrastructure. A compromised CA can issue fraudulent certificates for any domain, breaking the entire trust model of HTTPS.
It should never be exposed to the Internet. Port 710 should only be accessible from trusted administrative networks. If it's reachable from the public Internet, that's a serious security misconfiguration.
Check if it's still needed. If you're running modern Entrust software, you might not need this port open at all. Verify with your PKI documentation.
Related Ports
- Port 709 — Entrust Proto-PKIX
- Port 829 — PKIX-CMP (Certificate Management Protocol)
- Port 443 — HTTPS, where modern PKI administration happens
- Port 680 — entrust-aaas (Entrust Administration and Attribute Authority Service)
- Port 681 — entrust-aams (Entrust Administration and Attribute Management Service)
How to Check What's Listening
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
If something's listening on port 710, check if it's the Entrust Authority Security Manager service. If you don't recognize the process, investigate immediately—this port should only be used by legitimate PKI software.
Frequently Asked Questions About Port 710
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