Great question! The difference in exit codes (${PIPESTATUS[@]}) between your two commands comes down to how pipelines and exit codes are handled in Bash, especially when tee is involved.

Why the Difference?

1. Pipeline Exit Codes

In Bash, a pipeline (commands chained with |) only returns the exit code of the last command in the pipeline by default. This is why your second command (without tee) only shows 0 1:

• 0: Exit code of ls_secret (success).
• 1: Exit code of sudo openconnect (failure).

2. ${PIPESTATUS[@]}

${PIPESTATUS[@]} is an array that stores the exit codes of all commands in the last pipeline. This is why your first command (with tee) shows 0 141 130:

• 0: Exit code of ls_secret (success).
• 141: Exit code of sudo openconnect (likely SIGPIPE, since tee closed its input early).
• 130: Exit code of tee (likely SIGINT or manual interruption).

Why 141 and 130?

• 141: This is 128 + 13 (SIGPIPE). It means openconnect tried to write to a pipe that was closed (likely because tee terminated early, e.g., due to a manual interrupt or error).
• 130: This is 128 + 2 (SIGINT). It means tee was interrupted (e.g., you pressed Ctrl+C).

Key Takeaways

• Without tee, only the last command's exit code is shown (1 for openconnect).
• With tee, ${PIPESTATUS[@]} reveals the exit codes of all commands in the pipeline, including tee itself.
• The 141 and 130 suggest that either:
  • The VPN connection failed and tee was interrupted, or
  • You manually interrupted the process (Ctrl+C), causing tee to exit with 130 and openconnect to fail with 141 (SIGPIPE).

How to Debug Further

• Check if openconnect is failing due to authentication or network issues.
• Run openconnect without tee to see its direct output.
• If you manually interrupted the process, the exit codes are expected.

Would you like help troubleshooting the VPN connection itself?