As background info, you might want to read this discussion related to issues with TIME_WAIT and SO_REUSEADDR in scenarios like you seem to be having...   And, if you really, really, REALLY must use something rsh-like for this, you might want to try this guy's implementation (in Perl) of a "multi-rsh" specifically for purposes like these (use at your own risk, though - can't say much about the code quality).