Getting more than 256 connections with MySQL/Linux

[Alex Coke-Smyth]

Hi,

I am receiving errors when setting

max_connections=300

basically anything over 256 ends up giving the error :

Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available 
memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug

after 256 connections are open.

There is plenty of memory available and checking the docs says you should 
be able to get up to 1500 :

"If you are using our binary or RPM version 3.23.25 or later, you can 
safely set
`max_connections' at 1500"

I am using these rpm's from the MySQL website:

MySQL-3.23.38-1.i386.rpm         MySQL-devel-3.23.38-1.i386.rpm
MySQL-bench-3.23.38-1.i386.rpm   MySQL-shared-3.23.38-1.i386.rpm
MySQL-client-3.23.38-1.i386.rpm

using a linux 2.2.19 kernel  and glibc2.1.

Has anyone experienced this problem or know how I can get around it?

Many thanks

Alex