What does max_connections really mean?

Question

I\'m trying to set the ideal performance setup for MySQL and resources needed on a shared hosting.

My question is, what does max_connections really mea

Answer 1

Yes, there is a separate connection opened for each page. However, assuming you're not doing anything database-intensive, the connection will be short-lived and close itself once the page has been served to the client.

If you do exceed the maximum number of connections, any subsequent connection attempt will fail.