Regarding TIME_WAIT, you got me there, I didn't actually suspect they might be closed and timing out, is this normal behaviour?

Yes. A TCP port is marked as unavailable (TIME_WAIT) for an amount of time after being closed to avoid having a delayed packet from one connection affect a later connection on the same port. This can be disabled on a per-socket basis (at least).

Are there any ways for me to report number of sockets being kept open within perl?

I sure there is, but I don't know what tools are available.

On some systems, you could peek into /proc/$$/fd/ ($$ representing the process's PID). You'll see open file handles, which includes open sockets. 

$ perl -MIO::Socket::INET -E'
   system "ls -lF /proc/$$/fd/";
   my $s = IO::Socket::INET->new("www.google.com:80") or die $!;
   system "ls -lF /proc/$$/fd/";
'
total 0
lrwx------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 0 -> /dev/pts/7
lrwx------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 1 -> /dev/pts/7
lrwx------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 2 -> /dev/pts/7
lr-x------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 3 -> pipe:[2358130]
total 0
lrwx------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 0 -> /dev/pts/7
lrwx------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 1 -> /dev/pts/7
lrwx------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 2 -> /dev/pts/7
lr-x------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 3 -> socket:[2358143]
lr-x------ 1 eric users 64 Feb 14 15:22 4 -> pipe:[2358144]

[download]

(0,1,2 = std*. The pipe is used by system to communicate exec failures to the parent.)

Update: netstat on my machine has a -p option that shows the PID of the process that owns the socket.

In reply to Re^3: limiting the amount of sockets opened by f by ikegami
in thread limiting the amount of sockets opened by f by Faile

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