> -----Original Message----- > From: centos-bounces at centos.org > [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Peter Gross > Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 12:06 AM > To: CentOS mailing list > Subject: Re: [CentOS] command to ensure other command does > last longer than5 seconds > > Jerry Geis wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I am wondering if there exists a centos command that runs another > > command and ensures the second command doesnt take more than x > > seconds? When x is given on the command line. > > > > If the second command is not "done" the first command will > just kill > > it and both exit. > > > > Does such a method or command exist? > > > > I just need to ensure the second command does just continue > to run and > > run and run. > > Here's my admittedly kludgey quick and dirty way of doing this .... > write a shell script that does the following: > > 1. takes two arguments -- the command to run (in quotes) and > then the drip dead time (in seconds? or minutes?) > > 2. start the command in the background, saving its PID in a > var (say $pid). > > 3. create an "at" job to kill the pid at the appointed time, as in: > > echo kill -TERM $pid | at now + 15 minutes > > If the job has already finished, the kill -TERM will > hopefully be harmless (i.e., the pid's haven't cycled around > and there is now a new, but different, job with the same pid). > _______________________________________________ I think the best way to do it would be with the sleep command since the 'at' command does not allow you to specify seconds. In a script (which I presume is your first command) start the second command in the background, get the pid of that second command, then sleep for 5 seconds, and kill it. Michael