recover-lost-commits-or-work.md

git reflog for advanced recovery, git log for showing commit tree and basic recovery

Agenda

1. See malicious/on purpose deleting files commit and its content.
2. see how to recover/restore commit and content using git log
3. See malicious on purpose deleting files and history of a main branch
4. See how to restore/recover history + content using git reflog.
5. see how to restore using git fsck --lost-found : git fsck --lost-found | awk '{ $2="commit" ; print $3}' | xargs git show --name-only
   git reset --hard <commit_sha>
6. Show how to remove commit from tree: git reset --hard HEAD^

Procedure

   git clone [email protected]:zvigrinberg/git-recovery-demo.git
   cd git-recovery-demo
   git log
   ll
   
   ##case 1 - basic recovery.
   git log
   ## on purpose deleting files from branch, commit them, and push to remote server.
   git rm -rf *
   git commit -m "delete all files"
   ll
   git push
   ## reposition and setting HEAD to previous commit according to git log
   git log
   #takes the commit hash of the previous commit into reset --hard
   git reset --hard HEAD@{1}
   ll
   ## force push to remote server to recover lost files..
   git push -f
   
   ##case 2 - advanced recovery using git reflog.
   git checkout --orphan=deletingBranch
   ll
   git log
   git rm -rf *
   git commit -m "delete history and all content" --allow-empty
   git log
   git push -f -u origin deletingBranch:main
   git branch -D main
   git branch -av
   ll
   git log
   git reflog
   git checkout HEAD@{3} -b main
   ll
   git log
   git push -f -u origin main

case 3 - advanced recovery using git fsck --lost-found

echo "commit to be lost" >> lost.out ; git add lost.out ; git commit -m "commit to be lost and found" 
git log
# "remove" commit from commits tree
git reset --hard HEAD^
git log
# Show dangling commits with their commit message and their content.
git fsck --lost-found | awk '{ $2="commit" ; print $3}' | xargs git show --name-only
#Now you can pick the commit and merge it into your branch, if it's only one like in our case , you can run
git fsck --lost-found | awk '{ $2="commit" ; print $3}' | xargs -i git merge --ff-only {}