From: Martin Boese <boesemar@...>
Date: 2010-12-24T16:39:02+09:00
Subject: Secure Timeout


I am looking for a secure way to Timeout a block of code. I noticed that
'timeout' (part of ruby) doesn't work if the script is busy in a certain
function. For example:

  require 'timeout'

  Timeout.timeout(5) do
     Dir["/**/**"]
  end

... does NOT break after 5 seconds on my system. In fact not even
sending TERM works until Dir[] is finished. I see this also happening on
other functions, not just Dir[].

Is it possible to implement a timeout function that can't fail? Any
ideas how?

Using mainly: Ruby 1.8.7, Linux 2.6.32, FreeBSD 8.

Thanks!

Martin