Manual: gnutimeout

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.

       -f, --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

       -p, --preserve-status

	      exit with the same status as COMMAND, even when the command times out

       -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: 
       Report any translation bugs to 

SEE ALSO
       kill(1)

       Full documentation 
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) timeout invocation'

       Packaged by Ubuntu (9.7-3ubuntu2)
       Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

GNU coreutils 9.7					January 2026						  TIMEOUT(1)