Run process with timeout

[Natan]

Hi.

I have a python script under linux where I poll many hundreds of
interfaces with mrtg every 5 minutes. Today I create some threads and
use os.system(command) to run the process, but some of them just hang.
I would like to terminate the process after 15 seconds if it doesn't
finish, but os.system() doesn't have any timeout parameter.

Can anyone help me on what can I use to do this?

Thank you