The default http container maxThreads size in jboss-as-7.1.0.Final is 512*processors or cores that JVM can recognized.

one processor 2 cores:

My desktop has one processor that has two cores, and JVM will recognized as two processors as the 2processors_jvm.jpg figure.

When I setup 1024 connections to the 127.0.0.1:8080 we can find the Threads counts displayed on Jconsole is 1059 which is contain 1024 http-threads and 35 system threads.

And we can find out that JBoss has arrived at the Maximum number of theads(1024) from the console-log as max_2_processors.png showing.

Next, we will setup a virtual machin which only contain one process has one core.

We also setup 1024 connections to the 8080 http container. Then we can find the Maximum number of threads is 512 as 1processor_jboss.png showing.