NAME

timeout — run a command with a time limit

SYNOPSIS

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.

-k time, --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.

-s signal, --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:

EXIT STATUS

The timeout utility may return one of the following statuses:

124

The time limit expired and the -p flag 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

kill(1), signal(3)

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.