TIMEOUT(1)              FreeBSD General Commands Manual             TIMEOUT(1)

NAME
     timeout - run a command with a time limit

SYNOPSIS
     timeout [--signal sig | -s sig] [--preserve-status]
             [--kill-after time | -k time] [--foreground] duration command
             [args ...]

DESCRIPTION
     timeout starts the command with its args.  If the command is still
     running after duration, it is killed.  By default, SIGTERM is sent.  The
     special duration, zero, signifies no limit.  Therefore a signal is never
     sent if duration is 0.

     The options are as follows:

     --preserve-status
             Exit with the same status as command, even if it times out and is
             killed.

     --foreground
             Do not propagate timeout to the children of command.

     -s sig, --signal sig
             Specify the signal to send on timeout.  By default, SIGTERM is
             sent.

     -k time, --kill-after time
             Send a SIGKILL signal if command is still running after time
             after the first signal was sent.

DURATION FORMAT
     duration and time are non-negative integer or real (decimal) numbers,
     with an optional unit-specifying suffix.  Values without an explicit unit
     are interpreted as seconds.

     Supported unit symbols are:
     s       seconds
     m       minutes
     h       hours
     d       days

EXIT STATUS
     If the timeout was not reached, the exit status of command is returned.

     If the timeout was reached and --preserve-status is set, the exit status
     of command is returned.  If --preserve-status is not set, an exit status
     of 124 is returned.

     If command exits after receiving a signal, the exit status returned is
     the signal number plus 128.

     If command refers to a non-existing program, the exit status returned is
     127.

     If command is an otherwise invalid program, the exit status returned is
     126.

     If an invalid parameter is passed to -s or -k, the exit status returned
     is 125.

EXAMPLES
     Run sleep(1) with a time limit of 4 seconds.  Since the command completes
     in 2 seconds, the exit status is 0:

           $ timeout 4 sleep 2
           $ echo $?
           0

     Run sleep(1) for 4 seconds and terminate process after 2 seconds.  124 is
     returned since no --preserve-status is used:

           $ timeout 2 sleep 4
           $ echo $?
           124

     Same as above but preserving status.  Exit status is 128 + signal number
     (15 for SIGTERM):

           $ timeout --preserve-status 2 sleep 4
           $ echo $?
           143

     Same as above but sending SIGALRM (signal number 14) instead of SIGTERM:

           $ timeout --preserve-status -s SIGALRM 2 sleep 4
           $ echo $?
           142

     Try to fetch(1) the single page version of the FreeBSD Handbook.  Send a
     SIGTERM signal after 1 minute and send a SIGKILL signal 5 seconds later
     if the process refuses to stop:

           $ timeout -k 5s 1m fetch \
           > https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.html

SEE ALSO
     kill(1), signal(3)

HISTORY
     The timeout command first appeared in FreeBSD 10.3.

AUTHORS
     Baptiste Daroussin <bapt@FreeBSD.org> and
     Vsevolod Stakhov <vsevolod@FreeBSD.org>

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6        October 21, 2021        FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6