TIMEOUT(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ TIMEOUT(1) — like, the manual page, bestie ✨

okay so this is timeout from the GNU coreutils squad, and honestly? she's an icon 👑

💖 NAME 💖

timeout — run a command with a time limit, girl. you give her a deadline and she enforces it 🕐💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

timeout [OPTION]... DURATION COMMAND [ARG]...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So the vibe is: start COMMAND, and if it's still running after DURATION, kill it. That's it. That's the whole personality 😭🔥

mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too — no skipping, bestie 🙈

Here are all the flags, no gatekeeping:

  • -f, --foreground — for when you're not running timeout straight from a shell prompt: this lets COMMAND read from the TTY and get TTY signals. in this mode tho, the children of COMMAND will not be timed out. iykyk 🫶
  • -k, --kill-after=DURATION — also sends a KILL signal if COMMAND is still running this long after that first signal got sent. double tap, periodt 💀
  • -p, --preserve-status — exit with the same status as COMMAND, even when the command times out. she's loyal like that 🥺
  • -s, --signal=SIGNAL — pick which signal gets sent on timeout. SIGNAL can be a name like 'HUP' or just a number. see kill -l for the full list of signals 👑
  • -v, --verbose — diagnose to standard error any signal sent upon timeout. so she'll actually tell you what she did ✨
  • --help — display this help and exit 💖
  • --version — output version information and exit 🌈

okay so about DURATION: it's a floating point number with an optional suffix —

  • 's' for seconds (this is the default, no cap)
  • 'm' for minutes
  • 'h' for hours
  • 'd' for days

and a duration of 0 disables the associated timeout. zero means "live your life, i'm not timing you" 🦋

Upon timeout, timeout sends the TERM signal to COMMAND, unless you specified some other SIGNAL. The TERM signal kills any process that does not block or catch that signal. Sometimes you gotta bring out the KILL signal instead, because that one literally can't be caught. it's giving unstoppable 💅

🚪 Exit status: 🚪

  • 124 — if COMMAND times out, and --preserve-status is not specified
  • 125 — if the timeout command itself fails (not her fault, ok? 😭)
  • 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 (that's 128+9, math girlies rise 🧮✨)
  • - — the exit status of COMMAND otherwise

💀 BUGS 💀

Some platforms don't currently support timeouts beyond the year 2038. so like... future problems, bestie 🙈

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Written by Padraig Brady. king behavior 👑

😭 REPORTING BUGS 😭

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

and that's the whole page, pookie 🎀 this version was GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026, and it's packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2) — shoutout 💜

Copyright © 2026 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. 💅✨

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