BFG local cleanup

This is a thing that you can do to clean up your local git repo AFTER doing a commit and before pushing to origin.

PREWORK

  1. Download BFG.jar https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/
    https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/madgag/bfg/1.13.0/bfg-1.13.0.jar
  2. Create directory structure mkdir -p ~/.binaries/
  3. Move BFG into place, chmod it
    mv bfg-1.13.0.jar ~/.binaries/ && chmod 777 ~/.binaries/bfg-1.13.0.jar
  4. setup BASH_PROFILE
    echo 'alias bfg="java -jar ~/.binaries/bfg-1.13.0.jar"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export PATH=/Users/$(whoami)/.binaries:$PATH" >> ~/.bash_profile
  5. source it source ~/.bash_profile

Cleaning repo with BFG

Now what do we do.
I will create a new folder, and then create a git repo in that folder.
This would be the same as doing a git clone…
mkdir testing-bfg
cd testing-bfg/
git init

vi README.md
# do things
# do things that are bad

git add README.md
git co -a -m "I did an inital commit and it is bad"

git push origin master
*** pre-receive hook fires and stops me from pushing, so the push fails.
OR
I don't push, but the commit is already in my history, I need to clean it.

This is how you fix it.

In order for BFG to run properly you cannot run it from the source of your git repo, you need to be at least out by one folder.
cd ../

vi ~/my-mess
#this file is now located at your home folder as denoted by the ~/   thingy
#my-mess file
# these are the strings that you want out of your repo and commit history
AWS_TOKEN=X1V34
PASSWORD=

Now we have our dirty git repo located at testing-bfg.
We also have a text file with the “things we want to remove from the repo” that is located at ~/my-mess
We are going to run the bfg command which is aliased to bfg but you could also do this without the alias, java -jar bfg-1.13.0.jar The --no-blob-protection is telling bfg to rewrite my current history in all my branches and make clean.

bfg --replace-text ~/my-mess testing-bfg/ --no-blob-protection

Now you will have your file in a “modified” state according to git.
This is because your local file still has the BAD words in it, however your commit history does not. Therefore it is considered modified.
Now, go through and change your local file to fix your shame and do a new commit and move forward.

PROFIT