Automatic exit from Bash shell script on error

To exit the script as soon as one of the commands failed, add this at the beginning:

set -e

This causes the script to exit immediately when some command that is not part of some test (like in a if [ ... ] condition or a && construct) exits with a non-zero exit code.

Use it in conjunction with pipefail.

set -e
set -o pipefail

-e (errexit): Abort the script at the first error, when a command exits with non-zero status (except in until or while loops, if-tests, and list constructs)

-o pipefail: Causes a pipeline to return the exit status of the last command in the pipe that returned a non-zero return value.

Chapter 33. Options

Use the set -e builtin:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
# Any subsequent(*) commands which fail will cause the shell script to exit immediately

Alternatively, you can pass -e on the command line:

bash -e my_script.sh

You can also disable this behavior with set +e.

You may also want to employ all or some of the the -e -u -x and -o pipefail options like so:

set -euxo pipefail

-e exits on error, -u errors on undefined variables, and -o (for option) pipefail exits on command pipe failures. Some gotchas and workarounds are documented well here.

(*) Note:

The shell does not exit if the command that fails is part of the command list immediately following a while or until keyword, part of the test following the if or elif reserved words, part of any command executed in a && or || list except the command following the final && or ||, any command in a pipeline but the last, or if the command's return value is being inverted with !

(from man bash)