| Problem:
| I need help finding a way to stop the attempt of a remote command after
| a given time. Sometimes an rsh command gets stuck on a system that isn't
| quite well and doesn't return. The sick system responds to ping but is
| just anti-social.

Might try something like this.

        Donn Cave, University Computing Services, University of Washington
        d...@u.washington.edu
-----------------------------
#!/bin/sh

timeout=$1
case $timeout in
[1-9]*) shift;;
*) timeout=10;;
esac

case $# in
0) echo 'Usage: timeoutrsh [timeout] cmd' >&2; exit;;
esac

rsh "$@" &
p=$!
(sleep $timeout; kill -1 $p) &
k=$!

wait $p
exit=$?
#  Normal exits are 0..127, signals are 128+signo
case $exit in
129)
        echo '(timed out)' >&2
        ;;
*)
        #  Kill the killer.
        kill $k
        ;;
esac
exit $exit