Section 1 · User commands

timeout.1

Package: coreutils-common

TIMEOUT

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
BUGS
AUTHOR
REPORTING BUGS
COPYRIGHT
SEE ALSO

NAME

timeout − run a command with a time limit

SYNOPSIS

timeout [OPTION] DURATION COMMAND [ARG]… **
timeout** [OPTION]

DESCRIPTION

Start COMMAND, and kill it if still running after DURATION.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.


	−−preserve−status

exit with the same status as COMMAND, even when the

command times out


	−−foreground

when not running timeout directly from a shell prompt,

allow COMMAND to read from the TTY and get TTY signals; in this mode, children of COMMAND will not be timed out


	−k, −−kill−after=DURATION

also send a KILL signal if COMMAND is still running

this long after the initial signal was sent


	−s, −−signal=SIGNAL

specify the signal to be sent on timeout;

SIGNAL may be a name like ’HUP’ or a number; see ’kill −l’ for a list of signals

−v, −−verbose

diagnose to stderr any signal sent upon timeout


	−−help		display this help and exit

−−version

output version information and exit

DURATION is a floating point number with an optional suffix: ’s’ for seconds (the default), ’m’ for minutes, ’h’ for hours or ’d’ for days. A duration of 0 disables the associated timeout.

Upon timeout, send the TERM signal to COMMAND, if no other SIGNAL specified. The TERM signal kills any process that does not block or catch that signal. It may be necessary to use the KILL signal, since this signal can’t be caught.

Exit status:


	124		if COMMAND times out, and −−preserve−status is not specified
	125		if the timeout command itself fails
	126		if COMMAND is found but cannot be invoked
	127		if COMMAND cannot be found
	137		if COMMAND (or timeout itself) is sent the KILL (9) signal (128+9)
	−		the exit status of COMMAND otherwise

BUGS

Some platforms don’t currently support timeouts beyond the year 2038.

AUTHOR

Written by Padraig Brady.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.