timer for a function

[mk]

I have the following situation:

1.

self.conobj = paramiko.SSHClient()

self.conobj.connect(self.ip, username=self.username, 
key_filename=self.sshprivkey, port=self.port, timeout=opts.timeout)

2. very slow SSH host that is hanging for 30+ seconds on key exchange.

The timeout in the options regards only a socket timeout, not further 
stages of connection negotiation, so it doesn't work there.

On paramiko mailing list I got the suggestion to build a timer and then 
quit this by myself:

> The timeout option in connect() is for the socket, not for the entire
> operation. You are connected, so that timeout is no longer relevant.
> You would probably have to wrap the transport.connect() method in a
> timer to break out of this early.

Question: how can I do that? Use another threaded class? Is there some 
other way?


Additional snag is SSHClient() is a class that internally uses threads. 
How do I kill brutally its threads? Is there any way to do it?

Regards,
mk