I want know how I can run a command for a specified time say, one minute and if it doesn't complete execution then I should be able to stop it.
Use timeout:
NAME
timeout - run a command with a time limit
SYNOPSIS
timeout [OPTION] DURATION COMMAND [ARG]...
timeout [OPTION]
(Just in case, if you don't have this command or if you need to be compatible with very very old shells and have several other utterly specific requirements… have a look at this this question ;-))
answered Oct 23 '11 at 15:41
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1Perfect, thanks for linking to that question. I didn't have timeout on my system but I do now. Just on a side note, is timeout bundled with the majority of linux distributions? – nikhil Oct 24 '11 at 4:28
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1Pretty cool. you can do something like this:
for i in `seq 0 3`; do timeout 2 ethtool -p eth$i; done;to blink LED's on NIC's – user1527227 Jun 19 '14 at 16:42 -
2What a sexy command. Thanks for pointing it out, wasn't aware of it. – Bruno Bieri Mar 16 '17 at 14:16
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Example:
timeout 5s viwill run the editor for 5 seconds and will sendSIGTERM. You can usehanddfor hours and days. – Vladimir Iashin Apr 23 at 8:02
