Quick Tip

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

Challenge: When running commands or scripts, you often want to capture both standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr) into a single log file for easier analysis. By default, these streams are separate.

The Solution: Redirect both stdout and stderr to the same destination using the `2>&1` redirection operator.

your_command &> output.log

Why it works: The `&>` operator is a shorthand for `&1` (stdout) and `2>&1` (stderr). This redirects both file descriptors to the specified file, `output.log` in this case.

Pro-Tip: For even more concise logging, you can use `&>` as a shortcut for `&1 &2`.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 5/28/2026