redhat 9 max number of open files

[jan terje tønnessen <jt-toenn online no>]

Hi !
I am running redhat 9 (2.4.20-8) and I have a problem with max number of
open files. I am running a database (mnesia) which manages to open
approx 1024 files. 
I have tried different approaches to increase the limit of open files
but it does not work. I have tried changing:

/proc/sys/fs/file-max
/etc/security/limits.conf
ulimit -n

Today I run my process as root (but have also tested with another user).
Are 'root' treated special regarding the open-files limits ? 

cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max 
131072

/etc/security/limits.conf
*                soft    nofile          2048
*                hard    nofile          63536

ulimit -a
open files                    (-n) 2048

ls /proc/<mnesia-pid>/fd/ | wc -l    # gives approx 1024