Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!maart
From: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Killing the correct process
Message-ID: <5312@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 6 Feb 90 14:26:18 GMT
References: <22332@adm.BRL.MIL>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Reply-To: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Organization: VU Informatika, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Lines: 41

In article <22332@adm.BRL.MIL>,
	marwood@ncs.dnd.ca (Gordon Marwood) wants to timeout ftp.

How about using the following general purpose script?  If that's out of the
question, the script might still give you a hint how to solve your problem.
----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------
#!/bin/sh
# @(#)timeout 4.1 90/01/10 Maarten Litmaath

prog=`basename $0`
verbose=0

case $1 in
-v)
	verbose=1
	shift
esac

expr $# \< 2 \| 0"$1" : '.*[^0-9]' > /dev/null && {
	echo "Usage: $prog [-v] <timeout in seconds> <command>" >&2
	exit 2
}

timeout=$1
shift

exec 3>&1 4>&2 2> /dev/null

pid=`
	sh -c '
		(sleep '$timeout' > /dev/null & echo $!; exec >&-;
		wait; kill -9 $$) & exec "$@" >&3 3>&- 2>&4 4>&-
	' $prog "$@"
`

kill -9 $pid && exit 0
test $verbose = 1 && echo TIMEOUT >&4
exit 1
--
  The meek get the earth, Henry the moon, the rest of us have other plans.  |
  Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam:  maart@cs.vu.nl,  uunet!mcsun!botter!maart