[R] Implementing timeouts or multithreading in R to solve hanging network problem? (Snowfall)

[bstriegs]

Hello, I'm new to R and I'm building a system that uses a cluster of
computers to parallelize computations. To handle cluster setup I'm using the
R package Snowfall, but knowledge of Snowfall may not be necessary to answer
my question. I'm using a socket-based approach to cluster setup, so all I
need to do is give Snowfall a vector of hostnames and it handles the rest.

The problem is that if, for any reason, one of the hosts is unable to
initiate communication (say from a firewall, or if the machine is powered
off) then Snowfall doesn't produce an error message. Instead it just hangs
there forever, forcing me to manually terminate the process. I can't find
any documentation that addresses this problem.

I was thinking that the problem could be fixed if I could either:

1) set the cluster setup function to automatically time out after a certain
period has elapsed, or
2) initiate a timer in a separate thread that would kill the setup process
after a certain period has elapsed.

The problem is that I don't know how to do either of these, and in fact
these may both be impossible. If anyone has any suggestions, they would be
greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time. 
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