BASH Shell Redirect Output and Errors To /dev/null

How do I redirect output and errors to /dev/null under bash / sh shell scripting? How do I redirect the output of stderr to stdout, and then redirect this combined output to /dev/null?

You can send output to /dev/null, by using command >/dev/null syntax. However, this will not work when command will use the standard error (FD # 2). So you need to modify >/dev/null as follows to redirect both output and errors to /dev/null:

$ command > /dev/null 2>&1
$ ./script.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
$ ./example.pl > /dev/null 2>&1

You can also use the same syntax for all your cronjobs to avoid emails and output / error messages:

@hourly /scripts/backup/nas.backup >/dev/null 2>&1

Redirect all shell output

BASH Shell Redirect Output and Errors To /dev/null

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