How to stop tracking a file without removing it from repo

Question

I have a config file which I want to keep on the remote repository, but I don't want to track its changes on my computer. Adding it to .gitignore doesn't do the trick.

The reason I don't want to track changes is because it's supposed to differ between computers depending on their environment.

Answer 1

If you want to temporarily stop tracking a file, you can still use

git update-index --assume-unchanged <file> // track changes again : git update-index --no-assume-unchanged <file> 

Answer 2

If that's the case then you shouldn't have the file versioned at all; you should version a template of the file. For example, if the configuration file is foo/config.txt then you should have a versioned foo/config.txt.template in the repository with example (or blank) configuration settings. foo/config.txt should not be in the repository at all, and should be ignored with .gitignore.

Then, in a new clone, you just copy foo/config.txt.template to foo/config.txt and alter the settings as appropriate.