mysqladmin status
MySQL is multithreaded, so there may be many clients issuing queries for a given table simultaneously. To minimize the problem with multiple client sessions having different states on the same table, the table is opened independently by each concurrent session. This uses additional memory but normally increases performance
The table_open_cache and max_connections system variables affect the maximum number of files the server keeps open. If you increase one or both of these values, you may run up against a limit imposed by your operating system on the per-process number of open file descriptors. Many operating systems permit you to increase the open-files limit, although the method varies widely from system to system. Consult your operating system documentation to determine whether it is possible to increase the limit and how to do so.
To determine whether your table cache is too small, check the Opened_tables status variable, which indicates the number of table-opening operations since the server started:
mysql> SHOW GLOBAL STATUS LIKE 'Opened_tables';