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Execute a command with a timeout

Terminal - Execute a command with a timeout
timeout 10 sleep 11
2009-09-23 14:59:40
User: syssyphus
Functions: sleep
18
Up
Down
Execute a command with a timeout
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Alternatives

There are 3 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
very_long_command& sleep 10; kill $!
2010-04-29 20:43:13
User: dooblem
Functions: kill sleep
Tags: bg kill sleep timeout
3
Up
Down
Run a command for a given time

or "Execute a command with a timeout"

Run a command in background, sleep 10 seconds, kill it.

! is the process id of the most recently executed background command.

You can test it with:

find /& sleep10; kill $!

Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
$COMMAND 2>&1 >/dev/null & WPID=$!; sleep $TIMEOUT && kill $! & KPID=$!; wait $WPID
2010-05-26 11:12:26
User: unixmonkey9793
Functions: kill sleep wait
3
Up
Down
Execute a command with a timeout

I like much more the perl solution, but without using perl. It launches a backgroup process that will kill the command if it lasts too much.

A bigger function:

check_with_timeout() {

[ "$DEBUG" ] && set -x

COMMAND=$1

TIMEOUT=$2

RET=0

# Launch command in backgroup

[ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 6>&2 # Link file descriptor #6 with stderr.

[ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 2> /dev/null # Send stderr to null (avoid the Terminated messages)

$COMMAND 2>&1 >/dev/null &

COMMAND_PID=$!

[ "$DEBUG" ] && echo "Background command pid $COMMAND_PID, parent pid $$"

# Timer that will kill the command if timesout

sleep $TIMEOUT && ps -p $COMMAND_PID -o pid,ppid |grep $$ | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill &

KILLER_PID=$!

[ "$DEBUG" ] && echo "Killer command pid $KILLER_PID, parent pid $$"

wait $COMMAND_PID

RET=$?

# Kill the killer timer

[ "$DEBUG" ] && ps -e -o pid,ppid |grep $KILLER_PID | awk '{print $1}' | xargs echo "Killing processes: "

ps -e -o pid,ppid |grep -v PID | grep $KILLER_PID | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill

wait

sleep 1

[ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 2>&6 6>&- # Restore stderr and close file descriptor #6.

return $RET

}

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
perl -e "alarm 10; exec @ARGV" "somecommand"
2009-09-23 12:03:55
User: jgc
Functions: perl
1
Up
Down
Execute a command with a timeout

In this example the command "somecommand" will be executed and sent a SIGALARM signal if it runs for more than 10 seconds. It uses the perl alarm function. It's not 100% accurate on timing, but close enough. I found this really useful when executing scripts and commands that I knew might hang E.g. ones that connect to services that might not be running. Importantly this can be used within a sequential script. The command will not release control until either the command completes or the timeout is hit.

Show sample output | Comments (3) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

I can not find the timeout command on my centos5. Does it depend on some special Distribution?

Comment by hywl51 42 weeks and 5 days ago

it is in the ubuntu repo,

apt-get install timeout

according to the man page it is from here:

http://www.porcupine.org/forensics/tct.html

but looked around a bit and it didn't jump out at me.

Comment by syssyphus 42 weeks and 5 days ago

this bug report indicates that the timeout command is no longer part of tct, so.... you may have to dig up an old version of tct in order to install it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tct/+bug/78742

Comment by syssyphus 42 weeks and 5 days ago

perhaps this would be a better alternative, I have not tested it however.

http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/D/DE/DEXTER/timeout-0.11.pl

Comment by syssyphus 42 weeks and 5 days ago

There is now a timeout command as part of GNU coreutils

One could also try this script http://www.pixelbeat.org/scripts/timeout

Comment by pixelbeat 14 weeks and 1 day ago

Your point of view

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