saving bash shell errors to file

Question

I'm trying to save the errors when I do a chmod to a file. I am running the command:

chmod -R 766 * > chmod-errors.txt

But that does not work. I also tried

chmod -R 766 * | cat > chmod-errors.txt

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You are redirecting the standard output of the command, not the error output. You need to redirect the error output to the file.

chmod -R 766 * 2> chmod-errors.txt