Why does my system appear to disconnect from the network, and I see the errors "kernel: Out of socket memory" in the logs?

Issue

• Intermittently, a system may experience a network hang, or an application may be unable to connect to a host or accept new connections.

• These error messages may appear:

kernel: TCP: too many of orphaned sockets
kernel: Out of socket memory

• The system is fully usable from direct access, via the console.