I use the time service (in /etc/inetd.conf: time stream tcp nowait root 
internal) for simple time synchronization in small network (~10 computers) 
and after some time (about 20 days) inetd stops working (telnet, pop3, 
ftp, time). It does not reject connections, it closes them immediately. 
In /var/log/messages there is this message:

... inetd[373]: accept (for time): Too many open files

The inetd process has 1024 open files (/proc/{inetd pid}/fd) and 
netstat | grep :time 
gives long list (I suppose 1024 lines) of this kind:

tcp   1   0 {server name}:time  {client IP}:{port}     CLOSE_WAIT

I have to restart inetd to make it work, but number of open files of inetd 
process is still growing with every connection to the time service.

Client computers use Windows NT Workstation 4.0 (timesync, 
http://www.intsoft.com/products/timesync/) and one Linux (netdate).
Telnet to time port has the same effect - connection is not closed by 
server. Very old Slackware Linux did not have this problem.
Server has the kernel 2.2.16 compiled by me.

Martin Volf
qwert@egarden.cz