Fellow monks,
I am calling on your wisdom in search for some advice. I have this code that gets names from a mysql database and uses the name to get a mac address via rsh. The server executing this script is a linux machine. the hosts i am connecting to are NT/2k machines. Some of the machines on my list are behind seperate firewalls. So when my script hits a machine like this, it hangs waiting for a response.
Is there a way to set a default timeout value, like say 20 secs, to wait for a response before it goes on to the next machine. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Here is my code: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

#################################################################
# Ray Espinoza                                                  #
# 12-31-02                                                      #
# GetMacsFromDB.pl - this script will get hostnames from        #
#                       our inventory database and query for    #
#                       the mac address and print it to a file. #
#################################################################

use strict;
use DBI;


######################################################
# create a database handle and defining my variables #
######################################################
my (@array_of_lines, $string, $mac);
my $dbh = &connect;


##########################################
# opening a pipe to my file to print out #
##########################################
open (OUT,">>/home/respinoz/workbench/macs/MacResults.log") or die "Ca
+n't open f
ile: $!\n";


##########################################
# Calling the subroutine to do its work  #
##########################################
get_hostname_and_get_mac ($dbh);


##############################################################
# All of the subs are named appropriately to their function  #
##############################################################

sub get_hostname_and_get_mac {

my $dbh = shift;

        while (my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref()) {
                $hostname = $row->{name};
                $mac = get_mac($hostname);
                print OUT "$hostname\t$mac\n";
                }
        $sth->finish();
}

###########
sub get_mac {

my $hostname = shift;
my ($string, $mac);

        $string = `/usr/bin/rsh $hostname nbtstat -a $hostname`;
        if ($string =~ /s*(([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[-:]){5}[0-9A-Fa-f]{2})/) {
                $mac = $1;
                return $mac;
                } 
}


###########
sub connect {


my ($dbh, $sth, $count);
$dbh= DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:host=localhost;database=testsites","xxxx
+x","xxxxx"
,{PrintError => 0, RaiseError => 1});

return $dbh;

}

[download]
thanks, Ray

edited: Thu Jan 2 05:06:23 2003 by jeffa - added <readmore>

In reply to can i set a timeout by MulletRay

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