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TIMEOUT(1) User Commands TIMEOUT(1)
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.
If the command times out, and --preserve-status is not set, then
exit with status 124. Otherwise, exit with the status of COMMAND.
If no signal is specified, send the TERM signal upon timeout. The
TERM signal kills any process that does not block or catch that
signal. It may be necessary to use the KILL (9) signal, since
this signal cannot be caught, in which case the exit status is
128+9 rather than 124.
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/core‐
utils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationpro‐
ject.org/team/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2020 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.
SEE ALSO
kill(1)
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/time‐
out>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) timeout invocation'
GNU coreutils 8.32 April 2020 TIMEOUT(1)