title: What is the upper limit on the number of open sockets I can have in Windows Server 2003
body: <p>I'm building a chat server with .NET. I have tried opening about 2000 client connections and my Linksys WRT54GL router (with tomato firmware) drops dead each time. The same thing happens when I have several connections open on my Azureus bit-torrent client.</p>
  
  <p>I have three questions:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Is there a limit on the number of open sockets I can have in Windows Server 2003?</li>
  <li>Is the Linksys router the problem? If so is there better hardware recommended?</li>
  <li>Is there a way to possibly share sockets so that I can handle more open client connections with fewer resources?</li>
  </ol>