git rebase really old commit-CodePudding

I am trying to undo a really old commit that has already been pushed to the remote. I looked around and thought that git rebase was probably the best solution. so I ran the code:

git rebase -i <commit-id>

then edited:

pick <commit-id> <commit-title>
drop <commit-id> <commit-title>   <- the commit I want to delete
pick <commit-id> <commit-title>

Then tried applying this with :wq. This however triggered a LOT of merge conflicts (the commit is about half a year old).

The reason I want to undo the commit is because I accidentally added a file with credentials on it that I should not share with other collaborators.
So the only thing I want to undo is the "creation" of the file on the remote.

Is git rebase the best approach?
if so is there a way not to trigger all the merge conflicts (merge them just like before)?
I would rather not accidentally merge a conflict in the wrong way.

Also the commit I am trying to delete should not cause any conflicts with future commits. I tried running git rebase without dropping the commit but the merge conflicts still popped up.

CodePudding user response：

Thanks to @ElpieKay!
git filter-repo managed to do its job For full details look here.
I first tried to use BFG, but I had some issues so I moved on to git filter-repo.

I made sure I had pushed all local commits.
I installed git filter-repo

brew install git-filter-repo

I cloned a new local repository (git clone).
This step was because git-filter-repo alerted to run the command in a freshly cloned repo.
Delete the credentials file and add it to .gitignore. Make sure to save the credentials elsewhere if you haven't already.

git filter-repo --invert-paths --path PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA
echo "YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA" >> .gitignore
git add .gitignore
git commit -m "deleted file <file-name> and added to .gitignore"

newly cloned repo will not have an origin. Add it.

git remote add origin <your-repo-clone-url>

force push to origin

git push origin --force --all

Lastly ask to run a rebase on all other old branches in other local repositories.

git checkout <the-branch-cut-from-the-old-main>
git rebase origin main

And that should do the trick! Good Luck!