That would be 2>/errola.txt rather than &2>/errola.txt, the & is used when redirecting one file descriptor to another: 2>&1 redirects stderr to stdout. The easiest way to remember where the & goes is that: &2>1 could either redirect to filedescriptor 1 or to a file named '1' and a file named '1' isn't that unusual a name while 2>&1 is either going to redirect to filedescriptor 1 or a file named '&1' and it's unlikely that someone will want a file named '&1' so that is the way to do it. If you ever want to redirect to a file named '&1' you could: 2>'&1' but I can't think of a situation where you would ever want a file named &1, but then again I can't think of a situation where someone would want an album by N*Sync and I was totally wrong there.