mysql unable to open more that a 1020 connections

[Aaron Walker]

Hello,
I am having trouble getting a mysql server to open more than 1020 
connections.

Background:
I am in the process of upgrading from redhat 9 to rhel 3.  The old 
server could quite
happily open up  1500 connections, but the new  rhel 3 always stops at 
1020 connections.
Both the rh9 and rhel 3 are using the same mysql versions and   
configurations.

Hardware  and kernel version
The rhel 3 system
     kernel  2.4.21-27.ELsmp
    quad opteron 32 GB RAM.
The rh 9
    Kernel 2.4.20-8bigmem
    dual xeon 12 GB RAM

Both kernel are standard ones that are shipped with RedHat.

Things I have changed
 /proc/sys/fs/file-max and I am no where near the limit set there.
I have also looked at the output of sysctl -a but I cant see any obvoius 
things I could change. 
The output of which is included at the bottom
 I have also looked at changing the values retruned by ulimit -a
in particular the open files it was set to 1020 and is now set to 3000.

Any help here would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Aaron


vm.skip_mapped_pages = 0
vm.stack_defer_threshold = 2048
vm.inactive_clean_percent = 30
vm.dcache_priority = 0
vm.hugetlb_pool = 0
vm.max_map_count = 65536
vm.max-readahead = 31
vm.min-readahead = 3
vm.page-cluster = 3
vm.pagetable_cache = 25 50
vm.kswapd = 512 32      8
vm.pagecache = 1        15      30
vm.overcommit_ratio = 50
vm.overcommit_memory = 0
vm.bdflush = 50 500     0       0       500     3000    80      50      0
kernel.mem_nmi_panic = 0
kernel.unknown_nmi_panic = 0
kernel.sercons_esc = -1
kernel.overflowgid = 65534
kernel.overflowuid = 65534
kernel.random.uuid = 8808693b-9dc4-418e-9519-8d751a7ff333
kernel.random.boot_id = 173aabe6-fc44-4042-bae3-e8652c0db634
kernel.random.write_wakeup_threshold = 128
kernel.random.read_wakeup_threshold = 64
kernel.random.entropy_avail = 2480
kernel.random.poolsize = 512
kernel.pid_max = 32768
kernel.threads-max = 14336
kernel.cad_pid = 1
kernel.sysrq-timer = 10
kernel.sysrq-sticky = 0
kernel.sysrq-key = 84
kernel.sysrq = 0
kernel.sem = 250        32000   32      128
kernel.msgmnb = 16384
kernel.msgmni = 16
kernel.msgmax = 8192
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 33554432
kernel.rtsig-max = 1024
kernel.rtsig-nr = 0
kernel.acct = 4 2       30
kernel.hotplug = /sbin/hotplug
kernel.modprobe = /sbin/modprobe
kernel.printk = 6       4       1       7
kernel.ctrl-alt-del = 0
kernel.real-root-dev = 256
kernel.task_size = -1073741824
kernel.cap-bound = -257
kernel.tainted = 0
kernel.core_pattern = core
kernel.core_setuid_ok = 0
kernel.core_uses_pid = 1
kernel.use-nx = 0
kernel.exec-shield-randomize = 1
kernel.exec-shield = 1
kernel.print_fatal_signals = 0
kernel.panic_on_oops = 1
kernel.panic = 0
kernel.domainname = (none)
kernel.hostname = db4.ixe.activehotels.com
kernel.version = #1 SMP Wed Dec 1 21:59:02 EST 2004
kernel.osrelease = 2.4.21-27.ELsmp
kernel.ostype = Linux
fs.quota.syncs = 21
fs.quota.free_dquots = 0
fs.quota.allocated_dquots = 0
fs.quota.cache_hits = 0
fs.quota.writes = 0
fs.quota.reads = 0
fs.quota.drops = 0
fs.quota.lookups = 0
fs.aio-pinned = 0
fs.aio-max-pinned = 2097152
fs.aio-max-size = 131072
fs.aio-max-nr = 65536
fs.aio-nr = 0
fs.lease-break-time = 45
fs.dir-notify-enable = 1
fs.leases-enable = 1
fs.overflowgid = 65534
fs.overflowuid = 65534
fs.dentry-state = 2323  1381    45      0       0       0
fs.file-max = 3355443
fs.file-nr = 3874       393     3355443
fs.inode-state = 8701   6688    0       0       0       0       0
fs.inode-nr = 8701      6688