rmcd limitation?

[Brian Credeur]

Hello,

We are attempting to issue a relatively large number of rsh connections 
from a single host to multilple others.  Specifically, we are looking to 
start a cluster processing job.

After several tests, we have confirmed that there is a limitation of 
some sort at approximately 255 concurrent connections.  All of the 
rejected connects have the following error message:
   rcmd: socket: All ports in use

The error condition presents itself even when running 100 connection 
attempts from 3 different shells on the same system with any combination 
of user accounts, so it appears to be a system limitation.

Other people have posted reports that this issue is with RedHat 7.2 
systems, as well.  Some have described it as a limitation within glibc, 
and I wanted to verify if this was a known issue or
not.  If so, is there a viable/pending resolution?

Information on the host initiating the rsh connections:
$ cat /etc/issue

Red Hat Linux release 7.1 (Seawolf)
Kernel 2.4.9-6-smp.1G on a 2-processor i686

$ uname -a
Linux bilbo-ibm 2.4.9-6-smp.1G #1 SMP Mon Nov 5 23:05:45 CST 2001 i686 
unknown

$ ldd /usr/bin/rsh
       libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x4001f000)
       libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0x4004c000)
       libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4004f000)
       /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

$ cd lib ; ls -l *libc*
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root      5724399 Oct  3  2001 libc-2.2.4.so
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           17 Nov  1  2001 libcom_err.so.2 
-> libcom_err.so.2.0
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         8484 Sep 17  2001 libcom_err.so.2.0
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        87059 Oct  3  2001 libcrypt-2.2.4.so
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           17 Nov  5  2001 libcrypt.so.1 -> 
libcrypt-2.2.4.so
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           13 Nov  5  2001 libc.so.6 -> 
libc-2.2.4.so


Thanks,
Brian