diff --git a/changelog/unreleased/cli-configurable-timeouts.yml b/changelog/unreleased/cli-configurable-timeouts.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..46b6b4353a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/unreleased/cli-configurable-timeouts.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+# See https://github.com/apache/solr/blob/main/dev-docs/changelog.adoc
+title: bin/solr CLI commands now fail fast (3s connect / 30s idle) against an unresponsive
+  node instead of inheriting SolrJ's 60s/600s bulk-indexing defaults.
+type: changed
+authors:
+  - name: Eric Pugh
+links:
+- name: PR#4955
+  url: https://github.com/apache/solr/pull/4955
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/CLIUtils.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/CLIUtils.java
index f60d03c3574..4be1dc9f4b4 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/CLIUtils.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/CLIUtils.java
@@ -63,6 +63,16 @@ private CLIUtils() {}
   private static final long MAX_WAIT_FOR_CORE_LOAD_NANOS =
       TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS.convert(1, TimeUnit.MINUTES);
 
+  /**
+   * Connect and idle timeouts used for CLI-initiated Solr connections. These are much shorter than
+   * {@link org.apache.solr.client.solrj.impl.SolrHttpConstants}' defaults, which are sized for
+   * long-running requests like bulk indexing or replica recovery; a CLI command run by a human at a
+   * terminal should fail fast instead of hanging for minutes against an unresponsive node.
+   */
+  public static final int CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS = 3;
+
+  public static final int CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS = 30;
+
   private static CloudSolrClient.CloudSolrClientConnection resolveSolrConnectionFromCli(
       CommandLine cli) throws IOException {
     String solrConnection =
@@ -146,6 +156,8 @@ public static SolrClient getSolrClient(String solrUrl, String credentials, boole
     var builder =
         new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder(solrUrl)
             .withMaxConnectionsPerHost(32)
+            .withIdleTimeout(CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+            .withConnectionTimeout(CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
             .withKeyStoreReloadInterval(-1, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
             .withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
 
@@ -258,7 +270,11 @@ public static String solrUrlFromConnection(
     if (!solrConnection.isZookeeper()) {
       return normalizeSolrUrl(solrConnection.quorumItems().get(0), false);
     }
-    var builder = new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder().withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
+    var builder =
+        new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder()
+            .withIdleTimeout(CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+            .withConnectionTimeout(CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+            .withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
     try (CloudSolrClient cloudSolrClient = getCloudSolrClient(solrConnection, builder)) {
       Set<String> liveNodes = cloudSolrClient.getClusterState().getLiveNodes();
       if (liveNodes.isEmpty())
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/ExportTool.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/ExportTool.java
index b63c2ba002d..38b5753d410 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/ExportTool.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/ExportTool.java
@@ -254,7 +254,11 @@ DocsSink getSink() {
     abstract void exportDocs() throws Exception;
 
     void fetchUniqueKey() throws SolrServerException, IOException {
-      var builder = new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder().withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
+      var builder =
+          new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder()
+              .withIdleTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+              .withConnectionTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+              .withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
 
       solrClient =
           new CloudSolrClient.Builder(List.of(baseurl)).withHttpClientBuilder(builder).build();
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/HealthcheckTool.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/HealthcheckTool.java
index 7311877cc78..8c5b8823ef5 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/HealthcheckTool.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/HealthcheckTool.java
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
 import org.apache.commons.cli.CommandLine;
 import org.apache.commons.cli.Option;
 import org.apache.commons.cli.Options;
@@ -93,7 +94,10 @@ public void runImpl(CommandLine cli) throws Exception {
             cli.getOptionValue(COLLECTION_NAME_OPTION),
             cli.getOptionValue(CommonCLIOptions.CREDENTIALS_OPTION));
     var builder =
-        new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder().withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(params.credentials());
+        new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder()
+            .withIdleTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+            .withConnectionTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+            .withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(params.credentials());
     try (var cloudSolrClient = CLIUtils.getCloudSolrClient(solrConnection, builder)) {
       echoIfVerbose("Connecting to Solr at " + solrConnection.toString());
       runCloudTool(cloudSolrClient, params);
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/PostLogsTool.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/PostLogsTool.java
index 2764ba4b9fb..9af4082fdc0 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/PostLogsTool.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/PostLogsTool.java
@@ -119,6 +119,8 @@ public void runCommand(String baseUrl, String root, String credentials) throws I
     var builder =
         new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder(URLUtil.extractBaseUrl(baseUrl))
             .withDefaultCollection(URLUtil.extractCoreFromCoreUrl(baseUrl))
+            .withIdleTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+            .withConnectionTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
             .withKeyStoreReloadInterval(-1, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
             .withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
     try (SolrClient client = builder.build()) {
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/StreamTool.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/StreamTool.java
index da8beec6657..67ae4825a84 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/StreamTool.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/cli/StreamTool.java
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
 import org.apache.commons.cli.CommandLine;
 import org.apache.commons.cli.Option;
 import org.apache.commons.cli.Options;
@@ -303,7 +304,10 @@ void runStream(
   private StreamContext createStreamContext(
       CloudSolrClient.CloudSolrClientConnection solrConnection, String credentials) {
     var jettyClientBuilder = new HttpJettySolrClient.Builder();
-    jettyClientBuilder.withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
+    jettyClientBuilder
+        .withIdleTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+        .withConnectionTimeout(CLIUtils.CLI_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
+        .withOptionalBasicAuthCredentials(credentials);
     HttpJettySolrClient client = jettyClientBuilder.build();
 
     // subclass so we can ensure our client is closed when the cache is closed