If command reach timeout execute other command

Question

I'm trying to set up a script for my school's computer that switches them off automatically at the end of the day (since most teachers forgot them on).

I thought to send a zenify warning box to inform the user that the PC is going to switch off and, if the user do not confirm in 1 minute, the PC shuts down.

I know the existence of the timeout command, but in this case I want to call sudo shutdown -h now if the zenity command do not return in 60 seconds.

I was trying to do something like

timeout 60 --onTimeout="sudo shutdown -h now" zenity --warning --text="This PC is going to shut down in a minute if you DO NOT press the OK button."

The command would be executed in a cron script.

So, the question is: How can I execute a command when the zenity program timeout?

ilkkachu · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-17T19:14:14.090

You'll need to check the exit status and make a decision based on that. The manual for GNU timeout says that

If the command times out, and --preserve-status is not set, then exit with status 124.

So, in a shell script, you'd do something like this:

timeout 60 zenity ...
if [ $? = 124 ] ; then
    echo it timed out, do something...
else
    echo didn't time out
fi

Though, it appears that zenity supports a timeout in itself, so you don't need an external timeout:

zenity --timeout 60 --warning --text="Shutdown in 60"
if [ $? = 5 ] ; then
    sudo shutdown -h now
fi

Even if using Zenity's own timeout, it doesn't seem to show the time remaining. However, it does have a progress bar mode that could be used to convey a sense of impending doom. Something like this would display a timer counting down from 60 with a progress bar filling up at the same time:

#!/bin/bash
timeout=60
for (( i=0 ; i <= $timeout ; i++ )) do 
    echo "# Shutdown in $[ $timeout - $i ]..."
    echo $[ 100 * $i / $timeout ]
    sleep 1
done | zenity  --progress --title="Shutting down automatically..."  \
    --window-icon=warning --width=400 --auto-close

if [ $? = 0 ] ; then
    echo timeout passed
else 
    echo cancel was pressed or zenity failed somehow
fi

If command reach timeout execute other command

1 Answers1