You are correct that there is a limit of 1024 sockets when not running as root. However, as root, we often extend the maximum to 8K. In our IO::Select based implementation we have gone to 2K open sockets. But at these numbers the CPU load is considerable. I'm hoping there is someone out there who has found a way to get Event::Lib past the 1024 limit. I was thinking this might be by recompiling libevent. I was hoping that there might be a switch or something I might correct to get past this limit.