How to introduce timeout for shell scripting?

Question

I want to run a shell script that got a loop in it and it can go for ever which I do not want to happen. So I need to introduce a timeout for the whole script.

How can I introduce a timeout for the whole shell script under SuSE?

Answer 1

If GNU timeout is not available you can use expect (Mac OS X, BSD, ... do not usually have GNU tools and utilities by default).

################################################################################
# Executes command with a timeout
# Params:
#   $1 timeout in seconds
#   $2 command
# Returns 1 if timed out 0 otherwise
timeout() {

    time=$1

    # start the command in a subshell to avoid problem with pipes
    # (spawn accepts one command)
    command="/bin/sh -c \"$2\""

    expect -c "set echo \"-noecho\"; set timeout $time; spawn -noecho $command; expect timeout { exit 1 } eof { exit 0 }"    

    if [ $? = 1 ] ; then
        echo "Timeout after ${time} seconds"
    fi

}

Edit Example:

timeout 10 "ls ${HOME}"

Answer 2

Thank you for the clarification.

The easiest way to accomplish what you're after is to run your script with the loop within a wrapper like the timeout command from the GNU Coreutils package.

root@coraid-sp:~# timeout --help            
Usage: timeout [OPTION] DURATION COMMAND [ARG]...
   or: timeout [OPTION]
Start COMMAND, and kill it if still running after DURATION.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
  -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 an integer with an optional suffix:
`s' for seconds(the default), `m' for minutes, `h' for hours or `d' for days.

If the command times out, then exit with status 124.  Otherwise, exit
with the status of COMMAND.  If no signal is specified, send the TERM
signal upon timeout.  The TERM signal kills any process that does not
block or catch that signal.  For other processes, it may be necessary to
use the KILL (9) signal, since this signal cannot be caught.

Report timeout bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
For complete documentation, run: info coreutils 'timeout invocation'

In the end, it will be much easier than writing your own timeout function, which shells tend to not have builtin.

Answer 3

Launch a watchdog process from within your script to kill off its parent if it runs too long. Example:

# watchdog process
mainpid=$$
(sleep 5; kill $mainpid) &
watchdogpid=$!

# rest of script
while :
do
   ...stuff...
done
kill $watchdogpid

This script will be terminated by the watchdog after five seconds.

Answer 4

There's also cratimeout by Martin Cracauer.

# cf. http://www.cons.org/cracauer/software.html
# usage: cratimeout timeout_in_msec cmd args
cratimeout 5000 sleep 600
cratimeout 5000 tail -f /dev/null
cratimeout 5000 sh -c 'while sleep 1; do date; done'