Guillaume’s blog - git clean repo with bfg

bfg installation from scratch

install java8

sudo apt install openjdk-8-jre-headless
java -version
>> openjdk version "1.8.0_312"
>> OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_312-8u312-b07-0ubuntu1~20.04-b07)
>> OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.312-b07, mixed mode)

download bfg.jar

cd ~
mkdir -p Applications/bfg
cd Applications/bfg
# link from https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/
wget https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/madgag/bfg/1.14.0/bfg-1.14.0.jar

and add an alias to .bashrc

$ grep -n -s bfg .*
.bashrc:95:alias bfg='java -jar ~/Applications/bfg/bfg-1.14.0.jar'
$ source .bashrc

General usage

We will fix ~/git/d059-vld-ic

Remove big files

no need to create a clone, we can directly work on our repo

bfg --strip-blobs-bigger-than 100M ~/git/d059-vld-ic
cd ~/git/d059-vld-ic
git reflog expire --expire=now --all && git gc --prune=now --aggressive

Note: if you get a message Warning : no large blobs matching criteria found in packfiles - does the repo need to be packed?, you have to launch git gc

Remove big files from protected commits

Protected commits
-----------------

These are your protected commits, and so their contents will NOT be altered:

 * commit d914f24e (protected by 'HEAD')

In that case it is even easier, no need of bfg:

git rm --cached <my large file>
git commit --amend -C HEAD

Remove forbidden files such as .mp3, .tar.gz

need to create a clone, we can directly work on our repo

$ cd ~/Applications/bfg
java -jar bfg-1.13.0.jar --delete-files '*.mp3' --no-blob-protection ~/git/data-scientist-skills
java -jar bfg-1.13.0.jar --delete-files '*.tar.gz' --no-blob-protection ~/git/data-scientist-skills

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

Improve .gitignore

see git ignore large files