Sometimes while trying to log in I see that there are 'x' people in
the queue but there are more than many more than 'x' ports available.
See the following example:

16 waiting, 55 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
16 waiting, 53 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
16 waiting, 52 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
16 waiting, 50 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
17 waiting, 50 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
18 waiting, 50 remote + 6 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
19 waiting, 50 remote + 6 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
20 waiting, 49 remote + 6 local users; 72 max remote users; 7223 head
...11
...10
...7
14 waiting, 53 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7276 head
13 waiting, 55 remote + 7 local users; 72 max remote users; 7290 head
...5

I've seen this type of thing several times and was wondering what
causes it.  I realize that there's a bit of a delay from the time one
user logs out to the time that another (the one at position 0 in the
queue) can log in, but I don't think that can account for all of this.

72 max remote users, 55 current remote users = ~17 free ports, so why
are there 13 people queued up?

1 responses total.

My guess is that there is a maximum number of pty ports overall.  Some
local utilities online may consume some of those ports either through
interative login, mail service, or even users accesssing more than one
port for their online session.

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