I have got 1000 dedicated Java threads where each thread polls a corresponding url every one second.

public class Poller { 
    public static Node poll(Node node) { 
        GetMethod method =  null; 
        try { 
            HttpClient client = new HttpClient(new SimpleHttpConnectionManager(true)); 
            ......
        } catch (IOException ex) { 
            ex.printStackTrace(); 
        } finally { 
            method.releaseConnection(); 
        } 
    } 
} 

The threads are run every one second:

for (int i=0; i <1000; i++) { 
    MyThread thread = threads.get(i) // threads  is a static field 
    if(thread.isAlive()) { 
        // If the previous thread is still running, let it run. 
    } else { 
        thread.start(); 
    } 
}

The problem is if I run the job every one second I get random exceptions like these:

java.net.BindException: Address already in use 
 INFO httpclient.HttpMethodDirector: I/O exception (java.net.BindException) caught when processing request: Address already in use 
 INFO httpclient.HttpMethodDirector: Retrying request 

But if I run the job every 2 seconds or more, everything runs fine.

I even tried shutting down the instance of SimpleHttpConnectionManager() using shutDown() with no effect.

If I do netstat, I see thousands of TCP connections in TIME_WAIT state, which means they are have been closed and are clearing up.

So to limit the no of connections, I tried using a single instance of HttpClient and use it like this:

  public class MyHttpClientFactory { 
        private static MyHttpClientFactory instance = new HttpClientFactory(); 
        private MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager connectionManager; 
        private HttpClient client; 

        private HttpClientFactory() { 
                init(); 
        } 

        public static HttpClientFactory getInstance() { 
                return instance; 
        } 

        public void init() { 
                connectionManager = new MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager(); 
                HttpConnectionManagerParams managerParams = new HttpConnectionManagerParams(); 
                managerParams.setMaxTotalConnections(1000); 
                connectionManager.setParams(managerParams); 
                client = new HttpClient(connectionManager); 
        } 

        public HttpClient getHttpClient() { 
                if (client != null) { 
                        return client; 
                } else { 
                    init(); 
                    return client; 
                } 
        } 
}

However after running for exactly 2 hours, it starts throwing 'too many open files' and eventually cannot do anything at all.

ERROR java.net.SocketException: Too many open files
INFO httpclient.HttpMethodDirector: I/O exception (java.net.SocketException) caught when processing request: Too many open files
INFO httpclient.HttpMethodDirector: Retrying request

I should be able to increase the no of connections allowed and make it work, but I would just be prolonging the evil. Any idea what is the best practise to use HttpClient in a situation like above?

Btw, I am still on HttpClient3.1.