[ale] What's limiting programs run from /etc/init.d?

[Jim Lynch]

I have a c++ program that fires off a number of threads, each opening a 
tcp socket.  It works fine if I run it as root from the command line, 
but it appears that something is limiting the number of tcp sockets that 
can be opened at one time when run as /etc/init.d/program start.  I 
looked at ulimit but there doesn't seem to be any applicable limit to 
anything controlled by it.

The limit is in the ~20 open socket range, where I routinely see 30+ 
opened by the program run from the command line.

It's only at the start of the program that it opens a bunch of sockets, 
after that it's just a few once in a while.

Thanks,
Jim.