The Complete Guide to the Linux timeout Command: Syntax, Usage, and Real-World Examples

Background

A few months ago, I was managing a Linux server that hosted several critical applications, including a PostgreSQL database.

As part of routine maintenance, I was tasked with setting up automated backups for the database.

Everything was going smoothly, until one day I noticed that the backup process was hanging indefinitely and consuming system resources.

This was especially problematic because it was a production server, and any downtime due to high resource usage could have caused performance issues for the users.

After some investigation, I identified that the issue was happening with the pg_dump command, which is used to create a backup of PostgreSQL databases.

The command was occasionally hanging when trying to back up large tables, causing the entire backup process to stall.

While the backup was meant to run overnight, sometimes it would take much longer than expected, leaving the server running at full capacity during peak hours.

I knew I needed a way to ensure that if the backup process took too long, it would automatically terminate without impacting the performance of the rest of the server…