Sockets hanging in CLOSING state for hours

[Jason Giglio]

Hello,

I'm having trouble with sockets hanging in CLOSING state when lmule,
which was listening on the port, crashes.  This prevents lmule from
binding to the port upon restart.  I have confirmed that no part of the
program is still running. 

The socket stays hung in this state for up to several hours, and I can't
figure out any way to force the socket to close. (Though I suppose
rebooting would do it)

A search of the archive turned up a similar problem ages ago with
Sendmail on kernel 2.1.

Kernel is Red Hat 2.4.18-19.8.0

Please CC all replies.

Thanks,
Jason