Interestingly, the test hangs at around 59000 with the following message: May 11, 2009 5:12:18 PM org.jboss.messaging.core.logging.Logger warn | WARNING: Connection failure has been detected Did not receive ping on connection. It is likely a client has exited or crashed without closing its connection, or the network between the server and client has failed. The connection will now be closed.:3 Not sure this is a Netty problem or not, but I still can't get a 'too many open files' error. View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4229958#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...