Github: reset to previous commit

Question

Small team. A colleague pushed to origin:master by mistake. He has reset his local repo but cannot push -f to Github because repo is protected.

I have fetched the repo but not merged his errant commit into my local master...yet.

How can I, assuming I can push -f to origin, reset origin on Github so that it reflects the state it was in before his mistake?

$ git push origin 2860a4c:master
To github.com:example/myproj.git
 ! [rejected]        2860a4c -> master (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to '[email protected]:example/myproj.git'
hint: Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch is behind
hint: its remote counterpart. Integrate the remote changes (e.g.
hint: 'git pull ...') before pushing again.

Do I really need to integrate the bad commit (with git pull) before I can then, I assume, reset hard 2860a4c and then push -f origin?

I just don't want to make things worse.

Answer 1

Below are the steps you may do, assuming you have permission for git push -f.

On your machine, do:

# Step 1: Take the changes from remote
git pull

# Step 2: Note the commit to which you want for restoring your repo to 
# using `git log`. Say the commit id is "x". 
git log

# Step 3: Do hard reset for that commit. 
#         ** NOTE ** All the changes after the commit "x" will be removed
git reset --hard x    # where x is the commit id

# Step 4: Push to remote
git push -f

Then on collegue's machine, do step 1 to step 3 and then do git pull to merge the remote changes

---

In case you do NOT have permission for git push -f, do:

git pull

git revert <commit id>   # may get it via "git log"

git push

With git revert, changes from the reverted commit will be removed, but this commit will remain in the commit history.