sqlmap 0.6.3-rc4:

Minor enhancement to be able to specify the number of seconds before
timeout the connection, default is set to 10 seconds.
Minor improvement to retry the HTTP request up to three times in case
an exception is raised during the connection to the target url.
Minor bug fix to correctly catch connection exceptions and notify to
the user also if they occur within a thread.
Minor code restyling.
Updated documentation.

lib/core/option.py

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ import cookielib
 import logging
 import os
 import re
+import socket
 import time
 import urllib2
 import urlparse
@@ -264,7 +265,7 @@ def __setRemoteDBMS():
 
 
 def __setThreads():
-    if conf.threads <= 0:
+    if not isinstance(conf.threads, int) or conf.threads <= 0:
         conf.threads = 1
 
 
@@ -488,6 +489,29 @@ def __setHTTPCookies():
         conf.httpHeaders.append(("Cookie", conf.cookie))
 
 
+def __setHTTPTimeout():
+    """
+    Set the HTTP timeout
+    """
+
+    if conf.timeout:
+        debugMsg = "setting the HTTP timeout"
+        logger.debug(debugMsg)
+
+        conf.timeout = float(conf.timeout)
+
+        if conf.timeout < 3.0:
+            warnMsg  = "the minimum HTTP timeout is 3 seconds, sqlmap "
+            warnMsg += "will going to reset it"
+            logger.warn(warnMsg)
+
+            conf.timeout = 3.0
+    else:
+        conf.timeout = 10.0
+
+    socket.setdefaulttimeout(conf.timeout)
+
+
 def __cleanupOptions():
     """
     Cleanup configuration attributes.
@@ -543,9 +567,11 @@ def __setConfAttributes():
     conf.paramNegative   = False
     conf.path            = None
     conf.port            = None
+    conf.retries         = 0
     conf.scheme          = None
     conf.sessionFP       = None
     conf.start           = True
+    conf.threadException = False
 
 
 def __setKnowledgeBaseAttributes():
@@ -682,6 +708,7 @@ def init(inputOptions=advancedDict()):
     __setConfAttributes()
     __setKnowledgeBaseAttributes()
     __cleanupOptions()
+    __setHTTPTimeout()
     __setHTTPCookies()
     __setHTTPReferer()
     __setHTTPUserAgent()