Debian Scripting to remove the logging during apt-get install

Question

I'm trying to remove the log that debian puts out after you apt-get install something

Ign http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie InRelease
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease
Get:1 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRelease [63.1 kB]
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie Release.gpg
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates/main Sources
Get:2 http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [3,472 B]
Get:3 http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [1,720 B]
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie Release
Get:4 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Sources [131 kB]
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie/main Sources
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie/main amd64 Packages
Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie/main Translation-en
Get:5 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages [237 kB]
Get:6 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Translation-en [129 kB]
Fetched 565 kB in 3s (158 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libio-socket-ip-perl
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove it.
Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I want to remove this. Is there anyway to stop this whilst scripting?

Answer 1

Redirect the stdout to /dev/null by appending > /dev/null to any command:

apt-get update > /dev/null

To also redirect stderr to /dev/null append 2>&1:

apt-get update > /dev/null 2>&1

To upgrade or install packages without being prompted for [Y/n] add -y:

apt-get upgrade -y > /dev/null 2>&1
apt-get install <package> -y > /dev/null 2>&1

You could also send it to a log file:

apt-get upgrade -y > script.log 2>&1

A single > will overwrite the file, to log multiple commands use two >>, which will cause the output to be appended to the end of the file:

apt-get update >> script.log 2>&1
apt-get upgrade -y >> script.log 2>&1