Quick Tip

Taming Terminal Noise: Unified Logging with `2>&1`

Challenge: When running commands or scripts, standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr) are often intermingled or go to separate destinations, making it difficult to capture all output for analysis or logging.

The Solution: Redirect both standard output and standard error to a single destination using the `2>&1` redirection operator.

your_command &> output.log

Why it works: The `&>` syntax is a shorthand that redirects both stdout (file descriptor 1) and stderr (file descriptor 2) to the specified file. Alternatively, `your_command 2>&1 > output.log` achieves the same by first redirecting stderr to stdout, and then redirecting stdout (which now contains both streams) to the file.

Pro-Tip: Use `tee` to view output on the screen *and* save it to a file simultaneously: your_command 2>&1 | tee output.log

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 5/22/2026