NAME
timeout —
run a command with a time
limit
SYNOPSIS
timeout |
[-fp] [-k
time] [-s
signal] duration
command [arg ...] |
DESCRIPTION
The timeout utility executes
command and kills it if it is still running after the
specified duration. If duration
is 0, the timeout is disabled.
The options are as follows:
-f,--foreground- Do not propagate the timeout signal to children processes.
-ktime,--kill-after=time- Send a second signal,
SIGKILL, if the command is still running time after the first signal was sent. -p,--preserve-status- Always exit with the same status as command, even if the timeout was reached.
-ssignal,--signal=signal- A non-negative decimal number or symbolic signal name specifying the
signal to send on timeout, instead of the default
SIGTERM.
DURATION FORMAT
duration and time may contain a decimal fraction. The value defaults to seconds unless a unit suffix is given.
The supported unit suffixes are:
- s
- seconds
- m
- minutes
- h
- hours
- d
- days
EXIT STATUS
The timeout utility may return one of the
following statuses:
- 124
- The time limit expired and the
-pflag was not set. - 126
- The command was found but could not be executed.
- 127
- The command was not found.
Otherwise, timeout returns the exit status
of the command.
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The timeout utility is compliant with the
specification.
HISTORY
The timeout utility first appeared in GNU
Coreutils 7.0 and has been available since OpenBSD
7.0.