diff --git a/clusterd b/clusterd
index 3b44b15..60fc54f 100755
--- a/clusterd
+++ b/clusterd
@@ -531,6 +531,7 @@ use Data::Dumper;
 our $UDP_MAX=1472;		# for broadcast on alphas
 our $UDP_PORT=234;
 our $BC_RATE=8;			# packets per second broadcast
+our $TCP_TIMEOUT=30;		# default timeout for tcp processing
 
 our (%options);			# RUN OPTIONS
 
@@ -1748,7 +1749,7 @@ sub udp_rx_push {
 	}
 
 	my $s;
-	$s=My::Select::INET::connect_tcp($ip,$CLP_PORT,5,sub {
+	$s=My::Select::INET::connect_tcp($ip,$CLP_PORT,$TCP_TIMEOUT,sub {
 		$! and return warn "$ip: $!\n";
 		send_tcp_cp($s,sub {
 			$! and return warn "$ip: $!\n";
@@ -1765,7 +1766,7 @@ sub udp_rx_push {
 				print $fh $buf;
 				$bytes-=length($buf);
 				if ($bytes>0) {
-					My::Select::INET::read_with_timeout($s,$cb,5);
+					My::Select::INET::read_with_timeout($s,$cb,$TCP_TIMEOUT);
 					return;
 				}
 				$cb=undef;
@@ -1776,8 +1777,8 @@ sub udp_rx_push {
 				utime($st_want->mtime,$st_want->mtime,$filename);
 				warn "installed $filename\n";
 			};
-			My::Select::INET::read_with_timeout($s,$cb,5);
-		},5,'PULL',$st_want);
+			My::Select::INET::read_with_timeout($s,$cb,$TCP_TIMEOUT);
+		},$TCP_TIMEOUT,'PULL',$st_want);
 	});
 }