Getting a machine to time out...

[Fifield, Mike]

I am working on a script that connects to a about 3000 machines and first modifies the registry then stops and restarts a service then moves to the next machine. The problem I have run in to is that the script will hang on some machines indefinitely. I thought to ping the machines first but this does not solve the problem because some of the machines answer a ping but still hang. I am looking for a way to set a time limit of say 5 seconds per machine so that if the changes can not be made in that amount of time the script will stop, and go to the next machine.   use Win32::Service; use Win32::NetAdmin; use Win32::TieRegistry (Delimiter => '/'); Win32::NetAdmin::GetServers("","", SV_TYPE_WORKSTATION, \@List);   ######################################################################################### foreach $machine (@List){             if (-e ("\\\\$machine\\c\$\\temp\\LOG.txt")){                         unlink ("\\\\$machine\\c\$\\temp\\LOG.txt");             }             $nKey= $Registry->{"//$machine/LMachine/Software/KEYA "};             $nKey->{"INFO"}= ["0x00000000","REG_DWORD"];             print "$machine\n";               $sKey= $Registry->{"//$machine/LMachine/Software/KEY1"};                    $sKey->{"INFO/"}= {                         "INFO" => {                         "/Description" => "INFO",                         "/PackageDate" => "02/05/2002",             "/Status" => "Installed",            }             };             open(OUT, ">\\\\$machine\\c\$\\LOG.txt");             open(OUT4, ">>machines_updated.txt");             print OUT4 "$machine\n";             Win32::Service::StopService($machine, SERVICE);             Win32::Service::StopService($machine, SERVICE);                         $one = `rcmd \\\\$machine "c:\\bin\\kill.exe APP.exe"`;             print OUT "$one";             Win32::Service::StartService($machine, SERVICE);             Win32::Service::StartService($machine, SERVICE);                         $two = `rcmd \\\\$machine c:\\progra~1\\ APP.exe`;             print OUT "$two";                                     if(Win32::Service::StopService($machine, SERVICE)){                                     sleep 10;                                   $three = `rcmd \\\\$machine instsrv service REMOVE c:\\winnt\\system32\\APP.EXE`;             print OUT "$three";                         unlink ("\\\\$machine\\c\$\\winnt\\system32\\APP1.EXE");             unlink ("\\\\$machine\\c\$\\winnt\\system32\\APP2.DLL");             unlink ("\\\\$machine\\c\$\\winnt\\system32\\APP3.INI");             close(OUT); } }       Mike Fifield Charles Schwab & Co, Inc. WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received by the Charles Schwab corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival and review by someone other than the recipient.