Red Hat Knowledgebase

The number of telnet sessions is limited to 60 by default and is controlled by xinetd. The number of concurrent instances is set in the /etc/xinetd.conf file. A default file my look like the following:

#
# Simple configuration file for xinetd
#
# Some defaults, and include /etc/xinetd.d/

defaults
{
        instances               = 60
        log_type                = SYSLOG authpriv
        log_on_success          = HOST PID
        log_on_failure          = HOST
        cps                     = 25 30
}
 
includedir /etc/xinetd.d

In order to increase the default value of 60, modify the instances = 60 line to a higher integer or for unlimited, use the following:

#
# Simple configuration file for xinetd
#
# Some defaults, and include /etc/xinetd.d/

defaults
{
        instances               = unlimited
        log_type                = SYSLOG authpriv
        log_on_success          = HOST PID
        log_on_failure          = HOST
        cps                     = 25 30
}
 
includedir /etc/xinetd.d

After you make this modification, the xinetd services must be restarted with:

# service xinetd restart

You should see output similar to:

# service xinetd restart
Stopping xinetd:                                           [  OK  ]
Starting xinetd:                                           [  OK  ]