Want to change my master to an older commit, how can I do this?

Question

I want to rollback to a previous commit, and then publish that code, then go back to the latest commit.

i.e. so my master is pointing to an older commit version just

Answer 1

Assuming a commit graph like so:

| (A) ---------> (B) ----------> (C)
|                                 ^
|                              (master)

You want to first checkout master and create a branch that points to where master currently is:

git checkout master
git branch pointer master

Should look like this now:

| (A) ---------> (B) ----------> (C)
|                                 ^
|                       (HEAD, master, pointer)

Now that you're already on master, we'll tell the master branch to move backward one commit:

git reset master~1

Now, master should be moved back one space, but the pointer branch is still on the most recent commit :

| (A) ---------> (B) ----------> (C)
|                 ^               ^
|           (HEAD, master)    (pointer)

At this point, you can push master to a remote, or where ever, then fast forward merge it back up to the pointer branch. You can kill the pointer branch at that point :

git push origin master
git merge --ff-only pointer
git branch -D pointer

Final :

| (A) ---------> (B) ----------> (C)
|                 ^               ^
|         [ origin/master ]    (HEAD, master)