use Socket qw(SO_RCVTIMEO); use POSIX qw(:errno_h); ...; my $timeout = pack 'L!L!', $sec, $usec; $handle->sockopt(SO_RCVTIMEO, $timeout); ...; my $res = $handle->recv(...); unless(defined $res) { if($! == EAGAIN or $! == EWOULDBLOCK) { say "time out"; } }