timeout(1) — Linux manual page

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.

       Upon timeout, send the TERM signal to COMMAND, if no other SIGNAL
       specified.  The TERM signal kills any process that does not block
       or catch that signal.  It may be necessary to use the KILL
       signal, since this signal can't be caught.

   Exit status:
       124    if COMMAND times out, and --preserve-status is not
              specified

       125    if the timeout command itself fails

       126    if COMMAND is found but cannot be invoked

       127    if COMMAND cannot be found

       137    if COMMAND (or timeout itself) is sent the KILL (9) signal
              (128+9)

       -      the exit status of COMMAND otherwise

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/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2024 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/timeout>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) timeout invocation'

COLOPHON

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the tarball coreutils-9.5.tar.xz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/⟩ on 2024-06-14.  If you
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       manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

GNU coreutils 9.5              March 2024                     TIMEOUT(1)

Pages that refer to this page: time(7)

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