remove file from all git history

Question

Based on this article, I've created a small script which is supposed to remove all occurrences of a file in the entire git repo, all branches, tags and commits. The script:

#!/usr/bin/env node
var child_process = require('child_process');
if (process.argv.length < 3){
  console.error('USAGE: git-forget path/to/file')
  process.exit(1);
}
var path = process.argv[2];

var phase = 0;
function printLog(error, stdout, stderr) {
  if (error) {
    console.error('ERROR' + error);
  }
  console.log(++phase);
  console.log(stdout);
}

child_process.execSync('git filter-branch --force --index-filter \'git rm -f --cached --ignore-unmatch  '+ path +'\' --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all');
child_process.execSync('echo "' + path + '" >> .gitignore', printLog);
child_process.execSync('git add .gitignore');
child_process.execSync('git commit -m "Add ' + path +' to .gitignore"',printLog)
child_process.execSync('git push origin --force --all',printLog);
child_process.execSync('git push origin --force --tags',printLog);

This script worked on a few repos (which are private) and on a specific one it kept the initial commit to the file I was trying to remove. After the script was run I did this git log --all -- .npmrc and found the initial commit. What am I missing?

Answer 1

I think what happened is that you forgot to tell other users of this repo not to merge their changes to the new history, but rather to rebase. From the document you quoted:

Tell your collaborators to rebase, not merge, any branches they created off of your old (tainted) repository history. One merge commit could reintroduce some or all of the tainted history that you just went to the trouble of purging.

Try running the same script again, and see that no one re-introduces the old history by means of merging his/her local changes to the new head.