Today, I learned something extremely useful: how to efficiently remove sensitive information from commit history.

At some point, many of us make the mistake of accidentally pushing sensitive information to a GitHub repository. Simply deleting the information from the current repository does not solve the problem, as the commit history will still show the previous version with that information.

To address this issue, many turn to git-filter-branch. However, I want to introduce an even better alternative: BFG.

BFG is a powerful and easy-to-use tool that allows you to remove confidential information from your repository’s commit history safely. It offers a quicker and more efficient solution compared to git-filter-branch.

# Scenario

We have the repository how-to-use-bfg.

In this repository, there was an appsettings.json with sensitive information.

I deleted this sensitive information, made the commit and push, but the sensitive information still appears in the history.

# Prerequisites

• Git installed on your machine.
• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed to run the BFG .jar file.

# How to Use

The tutorial on the BFG website is quite straightforward, but here is a more detailed description to facilitate the process:

1. Download the .jar file from the BFG website.
2. Clone the current repository using the command:

   git clone git@github.com:amandamata/how-to-use-bfg.git --mirror
   

3. Create a reference file containing the value you want to remove from the commit history. For example:

   echo *VyieIqbij35MYV5&bIakKmq1Z > auth.txt
   

4. Run BFG, passing the reference value, using the following command:

   java -jar ~/Downloads/bfg-1.14.0.jar --replace-text auth.txt how-to-use-bfg.git
   

5. Access the cloned repository directory:

   cd how-to-use-bfg.git
   

6. Run the following command:

   git reflog expire --expire=now --all && git gc --prune=now --aggressive
   

7. Push the changes:

   git push
   

After following these steps, your repository’s commit history will be updated, and the sensitive information will be removed.

# Conclusion

Conclusion Removing sensitive information from the commit history is crucial for maintaining the security and privacy of your project. The BFG Repo-Cleaner offers an efficient and quick way to do this. If you have any questions or would like to share your experience using BFG, feel free to leave a comment below.

I hope this guide has been helpful. Good luck with cleaning your repository!