Problen setting wait_timeout with my.cnf

[Gerardo C]

Hello,
On my /etc/my.cnf file, I have the following settings:

[mysqld]
...
interactive_timeout = 600
wait_timeout = 30


However, after restarting the server to apply the settings, mysqladmin variables shows the following:

| interactive_timeout | 600
...
| wait_timeout | 600

Any clues of what might I be doing wrong?

I'm running Mysql 4.1.9 installed from the official rpm, on RedHatES

Thanks in advance