I have a set of bash scripts that I'm running that automatically build a set of packages for me and redirect their output into logs. Basically, I have a bunch of lines that are something like this:

${CONFIGURE_DIR}/configure &> ${LOG_DIR}/log

or cd ${CONFIGURE_DIR} && make &> ${LOG_DIR}/log, etc.

This is supposed to make the entire process silent. However, sometimes with some packages some output leaks to my console (either stdout or stderr). Does anyone know why? I'm thinking that maybe the configure scripts/make are executing commands within new shell instances that don't inherit my redirect, or something to that effect.

Another reason for thinking this is that in another part of my script I detect errors when running make by testing with "if [ $? -ne 0 ]", and if the redirect leaks to my console and also the leaked output indicates that the build failed ("make: Error" and so on), then my $? test fails (i.e., it thinks that $? == 0, whereas a failed make should return a non-zero value). It's as if my original script can't "see" the results from child commands executed from later scripts.

Any ideas?

Do you get the same results from the command line?