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
--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.
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.
GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> Report timeout translation bugs to
<http://translationproject.org/team/>
BUGS
Some platforms don't curently support timeouts beyond 2038
The full documentation for timeout is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and timeout programs are
properly installed at your site, the command
info coreutils 'timeout invocation'
should give you access to the complete manual.
GNU coreutils 8.22 November 2016 TIMEOUT(1)
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