How to modify remote history with git filter-repo?

user_13400491 0
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In the past I've used git filter-branch to remove files from my git history. Following that, I can do a force push to update the remote repository. For example, removing all HTML files from the local repo and then rewriting the remote to reflect the change:

$ git filter-branch --force --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch -r \*.html' --prune-empty -- --all
$ git push origin --force --all

This works perfectly fine. But seeing as filter-branch is extremely slow and has been deprecated for a while, I'd like to do this with git-filter-repo instead. So far, this seems to be the equivalent command:

$ git-filter-repo --force --path-glob *.html --invert-paths

This first step appears to work. My issue is when I attempt a force push afterwards, I see my remotes have been lost.

$ git push origin --force --all
fatal: 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

The filter-repo command appears to have removed my remote URLs when I check git remote -v. Adding back the remote manually puts me down a rabbit hole of other settings be invalid.

Why does git-filter-repo remove my remote? And how can I rewrite remote's history using git-filter-repo like I'm able to with git filter-branch?

git-filter-repo git-filter-branch git
2 Answers

Why does git-filter-repo remove my remote?

The documentation explains their reasoning, in the section titled INTERNALS:

  1. We don’t want users accidentally pushing back to the original repo, as discussed in DISCUSSION. It also reminds users that since history has been rewritten, this repo is no longer compatible with the original. Finally, another minor benefit is this allows users to push with the --mirror option to their new home without accidentally sending remote tracking branches.

And how can I rewrite remote's history using git-filter-repo like I'm able to with git filter-branch?

Just use git remote add to put origin back, or—since step 3 in the command sequence is git remote rm origin—just rename origin to some other name first. If you do that, though, note step 2.

You said:

Adding back the remote manually puts me down a rabbit hole of other settings be invalid.

You'll need to go into more detail here, obviously.

user_12564520

working on git recently. got the same issue.

after running git-filter-repo, my "git branch -r" returns nothing. To get the output back, you need:

git remote add origin xxxxxxxxxxx
git fetch --all

Then, you will get your "git branch -r" output back.

user_13352260
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