How to set ssh timeout?

I'm executing a script connecting via password-less SSH on a remote host. I want to set a timeout, so that if the remote host is taking an infinite time to run, I want to come out of that ssh session and continue other lines in my sh script.

How can I set a timeout?

ssh -o ConnectTimeout=10  <hostName>

Where 10 is time in seconds. This Timeout applies only to the creation of the connection.

Use the -o ConnectTimeout and -o BatchMode=yes -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no .

ConnectTimeout keeps the script from hanging, BatchMode keeps it from hanging with Host unknown, YES to add to known_hosts, and StrictHostKeyChecking adds the fingerprint automatically.

**** NOTE **** The "StrictHostKeyChecking" was only intended for internal networks where you trust you hosts. Depending on the version of the SSH client, the "Are you sure you want to add your fingerprint" can cause the client to hang indefinitely (mainly old versions running on AIX). Most modern versions do not suffer from this issue. If you have to deal with fingerprints with multiple hosts, I recommend maintaining the known_hosts file with some sort of configuration management tool like puppet/ansible/chef/salt/etc.

try this:

timeout 5 ssh user@ip

timeout executes the ssh command (with args) and sends a SIGTERM if ssh doesn't return after 5 second. for more details about timeout, read this document： http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/timeout.1.html

or you can use the param of ssh:

ssh -o ConnectTimeout=3 user@ip

You could also connect with flag

-o ServerAliveInterval=<secs>

If all else fails (including not having the timeout command) the concept in this shell script will work:

 #!/bin/bash
 set -u
 ssh $1 "sleep 10 ; uptime" > /tmp/outputfile 2>&1 & PIDssh=$!
 Count=0
 while test $Count -lt 5 && ps -p $PIDssh > /dev/null
 do
    echo -n .
    sleep 1
    Count=$((Count+1))
 done
 echo ""

 if ps -p $PIDssh > /dev/null
 then
    echo "ssh still running, killing it"
    kill -HUP $PIDssh
 else
    echo "Exited"
 fi