How to kill a child process after a given timeout in Bash?

Question

I have a bash script that launches a child process that crashes (actually, hangs) from time to time and with no apparent reason (closed source, so there isn\'t much I can do

Answer 1

(As seen in: BASH FAQ entry #68: "How do I run a command, and have it abort (timeout) after N seconds?")

If you don't mind downloading something, use timeout (sudo apt-get install timeout) and use it like: (most Systems have it already installed otherwise use sudo apt-get install coreutils)

timeout 10 ping www.goooooogle.com

If you don't want to download something, do what timeout does internally:

( cmdpid=$BASHPID; (sleep 10; kill $cmdpid) & exec ping www.goooooogle.com )

In case that you want to do a timeout for longer bash code, use the second option as such:

( cmdpid=$BASHPID; 
    (sleep 10; kill $cmdpid) \
   & while ! ping -w 1 www.goooooogle.com 
     do 
         echo crap; 
     done )