In most cases this is of minimal interest unless you're trying to track down a specific socket related problem. In the cases of a runaway process or someone opening but not closing sockets this number has been seen to grow quite large and even consume all resources causing a system crash, but those cases are pretty rare. In any event, during times of strange behavior it can't hurt to have a look at these numbers if for no other reason than to rule out socket problems.
| updated August 30, 2011 |