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 sig‐
       nal  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 curently support timeouts beyond 2038

AUTHOR
       Written by Padraig Brady.

REPORTING BUGS
       GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report timeout translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  ©  2014  Free  Software  Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or
       later <http://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 at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/timeout>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) timeout invocation'



GNU coreutils 8.23                          March 2015                                 TIMEOUT(1)