In Linux, in order to avoid running out of sockets you can use the following as root:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_tw_recycle

I'm not sure how your Linux install is set, just wanted to mention that I once wrote a bot to monitor svn commits and it had this problem and netstat would uncover many 

TIME_WAIT
still opened but unused connections.

Here are some docs that describe what tcp_tw_recycle does(Taken from ip-sysctl.txt): 

tcp_tw_recycle - BOOLEAN
	Enable fast recycling TIME-WAIT sockets. Default value is 0.
	It should not be changed without advice/request of technical
	experts.

In reply to Re^2: Socket hang. (Windows or Perl? Solutions?) (Updated) by spx2
in thread Socket hang. (Windows or Perl? Solutions?) (Updated) by BrowserUk

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