Ideally, any number (limited by RLIMIT_NOFILE and available memory).
I know there is a problem with select(), but it _can_ be done. From
http://www.openbsd.org/plus.html (How OpenBSD is different from other
*BSD's):
* select() that can handle any amount of file descriptors.
I don't know how they implemented it, but someone might want to take
a look at it. If OpenBSD can do it, so should Linux.
> I think we need ANSI or POSIX or some such "committee" to make such a rule.
I think POSIX only specifies absolute minimum, 20 or something like
that.
Marek