diff --git a/include/linux/sunrpc/svc.h b/include/linux/sunrpc/svc.h
index 3afe7fb403b2..3435d24bfe55 100644
--- a/include/linux/sunrpc/svc.h
+++ b/include/linux/sunrpc/svc.h
@@ -58,10 +58,13 @@ struct svc_serv {
 	struct svc_stat *	sv_stats;	/* RPC statistics */
 	spinlock_t		sv_lock;
 	unsigned int		sv_nrthreads;	/* # of server threads */
+	unsigned int		sv_maxconn;	/* max connections allowed or
+						 * '0' causing max to be based
+						 * on number of threads. */
+
 	unsigned int		sv_max_payload;	/* datagram payload size */
 	unsigned int		sv_max_mesg;	/* max_payload + 1 page for overheads */
 	unsigned int		sv_xdrsize;	/* XDR buffer size */
-
 	struct list_head	sv_permsocks;	/* all permanent sockets */
 	struct list_head	sv_tempsocks;	/* all temporary sockets */
 	int			sv_tmpcnt;	/* count of temporary sockets */
diff --git a/net/sunrpc/svc_xprt.c b/net/sunrpc/svc_xprt.c
index bf5b5cdafebf..3fe4f1004278 100644
--- a/net/sunrpc/svc_xprt.c
+++ b/net/sunrpc/svc_xprt.c
@@ -515,8 +515,10 @@ int svc_port_is_privileged(struct sockaddr *sin)
 }
 
 /*
- * Make sure that we don't have too many active connections.  If we
- * have, something must be dropped.
+ * Make sure that we don't have too many active connections. If we have,
+ * something must be dropped. It's not clear what will happen if we allow
+ * "too many" connections, but when dealing with network-facing software,
+ * we have to code defensively. Here we do that by imposing hard limits.
  *
  * There's no point in trying to do random drop here for DoS
  * prevention. The NFS clients does 1 reconnect in 15 seconds. An
@@ -525,19 +527,27 @@ int svc_port_is_privileged(struct sockaddr *sin)
  * The only somewhat efficient mechanism would be if drop old
  * connections from the same IP first. But right now we don't even
  * record the client IP in svc_sock.
+ *
+ * single-threaded services that expect a lot of clients will probably
+ * need to set sv_maxconn to override the default value which is based
+ * on the number of threads
  */
 static void svc_check_conn_limits(struct svc_serv *serv)
 {
-	if (serv->sv_tmpcnt > (serv->sv_nrthreads+3)*20) {
+	unsigned int limit = serv->sv_maxconn ? serv->sv_maxconn :
+				(serv->sv_nrthreads+3) * 20;
+
+	if (serv->sv_tmpcnt > limit) {
 		struct svc_xprt *xprt = NULL;
 		spin_lock_bh(&serv->sv_lock);
 		if (!list_empty(&serv->sv_tempsocks)) {
 			if (net_ratelimit()) {
 				/* Try to help the admin */
 				printk(KERN_NOTICE "%s: too many open  "
-				       "connections, consider increasing the "
-				       "number of nfsd threads\n",
-				       serv->sv_name);
+				       "connections, consider increasing %s\n",
+				       serv->sv_name, serv->sv_maxconn ?
+				       "the max number of connections." :
+				       "the number of threads.");
 			}
 			/*
 			 * Always select the oldest connection. It's not fair,