Warning: what follows is purely conceptual.

Perhaps I'm just too simple minded;
But wouldn't it be possible to create a file, as a pseudo pid file. Then check against it's mtime, or atime, for use as a timer. Then wrap the/whatever time-sensitive process in a for/while loop. All the while checking the time since the file was created, if that time has exceeded that time. Issue an exit?

Using system (*NIX). Part of it might look like:

my $arg1 = ('-XP . -type l -cmin');
my $arg2 = ('+15');
my $arg3 = ('xargs rm');
system("/usr/bin/find $arg1 $arg2 | $arg3");
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Utilizing the above, one could even make the loop depend upon the existence of the "pseudo pid" file. No?

Like I said; conceptual. But I used a similar approach for something else "time sensitive/related (which is where the code above was taken), and it works great.

--Chris