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So in the above example the first '>' says to redirect the standard output of the echo command to the cmd3.log file. The '2>&1' part says to redirect standard error to the same place. Technically, it says to redirect standard error (built-in Linux stream 2) to the same place as standard output (built-in Linux stream 1); and since standard output is going to cmd3.log, any standard error will go there also. (Read more about Standard streams and redirection)
When the TACC batch system runs a job, all outputs generated by tasks in the batch job are directed to one output and error file per job. Here they have names like simple.e924965 and simple.o924965. simple.o924965 contains all standard output and simple.o924965 contains all standard error generated by your tasks that was not redirected elsewhere, as well as information relating to running your job and its tasks. For large jobs with complex tasks, it is not easy to troubleshoot execution problems using these files.
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