The message in /var/log/messages indicates that the server is running out of file descriptors. A file descriptor is a non-negative integer identifier for an open file in Linux. Each process has a table of open file descriptors where a new entry is appended upon opening a new file. There is a limit on how many file descriptors a process can open at a time, which depends on the system configuration and the user privileges. If a process tries to open more files than the limit, it will fail with an error message like "Too many open files". This could cause connections to be closed unexpectedly or other problems with the application.

The other options are not correct causes for the connection issue. The process mysqld is not using too many semaphores, which are synchronization mechanisms for processes that share resources. Semaphores are not related to file descriptors or open files. Something is not starving the server resources, which could mean high CPU usage, memory pressure, disk I/O, network congestion, or other factors that affect performance. These could cause slowdowns or timeouts, but not file descriptor exhaustion. The amount of RAM allocated to the server is not too high, which could cause swapping or paging if it exceeds the physical memory available. This could also affect performance, but not file descriptor availability. References: File Descriptor Requirements (Linux Systems); Limits on the Number of Linux File Descriptors