Re: how to delete the entire history before a certain commit

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: May 3, 2010, 22:45 UTC
Message-ID: <m3ocgwfvw2.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <hrnidr$etm$1@dough.gmane.org>

Gelonida <gelonida@gmail.com> writes:

> We have a git repository, whose size we want to reduce drastically due
> to frequent clone operations and a slow network connection.

 
Why frequent *clone* operations, instead of using "git fetch" or
equivalent ("git pull" which is fetch+merge, or "git remote update")?

If network is slow, you can do what others did in similar situations:
use hook to allow only not to large fetches (to prevent cloning)
directly on server, and provide bundle (see git-bundle(1)) to "seed"
the clone; it can be on dumb server (served resumably), and can be
also served by BitTorrent or equivalent.

Show 10 quoted lines

> The idea is following:
> 
> * archive the git repository just in case we really have to go back in
> history.
> 
> 
> create a new git repository, which shall only contain last month's activity.
> 
> all changes before should be squashed together.
> It would be no problem if the very first commit remains unmodified.

If you want to simply _remove_ history before specified commit, instead of squashing it, the best solution would be to use grafts to cauterize (cut) history, check using [graphical] history viewer that you cut it correctly, and then then use git-filter-branch to make this cut permanent.

You can later use grafts or refs/replaces/ mechanism to join "current" history with historical repository.

HTH.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git