NAME

timeout — run a command with a time limit

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The timeout utility executes command and terminates it, if still running after duration.

duration is a string containing non-negative decimal numbers including floats, terminated by a suffix: s for seconds, m for minutes, h for hours, d for days. If the final number doesn't have a suffix it is assumed to be seconds. Longer durations are taken as out of scope.

OPTIONS

-f

Disables killing child processes.

-k duration

Enables sending a SIGKILL after duration.

-p

Preserve (mimic) the wait status of command, even after duration.

-s SIGNAL

Signal to be sent on timeout, by default SIGTERM is sent. Signal may be a name like 'HUP' or 'SIGHUP', or a number like '9'.

A list of signals may be obtained with kill -l.

EXIT STATUS

The timeout utility may return one of the following statuses:

124

Timeout reached

125

Error within timeout

126

Failed to execute command

Otherwise, the exit status of command is returned.

SEE ALSO

kill(1), sleep(1)

STANDARDS

timeout should be compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2024 (“POSIX.1”) specification.

HISTORY

A timeout utility appeared in SATAN, Netatalk, GNU Coreutils 7.0, OpenBSD 7.0, NetBSD 7.0, FreeBSD 10.3, IEEE Std 1003.1-2024 (“POSIX.1”).

AUTHORS

Haelwenn (lanodan) Monnier <contact+utils@hacktivis.me>