How do I stop Git from tracking any changes to a file from this commit forward?

I have a database configuration file that has default values that are unimportant. However, any changes to this file would contain sensitive information that should not be tracked in the repo.

I would like future pulls of the Git repository to include the default version but disregard any changes made by any user.

The following keeps a local configuration but pushes the delete to the repo resulting in issues for future pulls.

cat "app/dir/config.file" >> .gitignore
git rm --cached app/dir/config.file

The following does the job but does not persist past the push to the repo.

git update-index --assume-unchanged app/dir/config.file

This seems like a common requirement for version control around sensitive information but I can't seem to find a solution.

Solution 1:

As usual github has a great doc on this.

https://help.github.com/articles/ignoring-files#ignoring-versioned-files

Here's the relevant snippet:

Ignoring versioned files

Some files in a repository change often but are rarely committed. Usually, these are various local configuration files that are edited, but should never be committed upstream. Git lets you ignore those files by assuming they are unchanged.

1. In Terminal, navigate to the location of your Git repository.
2. Run the following command in your terminal:

git update-index --assume-unchanged path/to/file.txt

Once you mark a file like this, Git completely ignores any changes on it. It will never show up when running git status or git diff, nor will it ever be committed.

To make Git track the file again, simply run:

git update-index --no-assume-unchanged path/to/file.txt.

Solution 2:

Not sure if this is the "best" way... but what I have found to work takes a few steps.

New Laravel Example:

1. git init
2. Adjust .gitignore files for desired results like not losing the vendors folders.
3. Make a copy of the files you don't want tracked (ex: .htaccess, .env, etc)
4. git add .
5. git commit -m "first commit"
6. git rm --cached public /.htaccess then git rm --cached .env
7. git commit
8. git status should show those files as deleted.
9. Now put the file you copied back. Since they are the same name as what you told git to remove from tracking, git will now fully ignore those files.

Now those can be edited, and you can have local and production versions. NOTE: You may have to repeat all these steps the first time on the production set-up as well. So far this has worked well for me.