Q:

Git ignore is not ignoring the netbeans private files

When ever I do git status, the netbeans private.xml is making trouble, I tried adding that in git ignore several ways. but the gitignore simply does not ignore it.
git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.

Changes not staged for commit:
   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

   modified:   .gitignore
   modified:   nbproject/private/private.xml
...

My git ignore file is
node_modules/
dist/
*.log
nbproject/private/*    
*.bak
*.orig
*~
*.log
*private.xml

Tried both 
nbproject/private/*
and 
*private.xml
in the same file.

A:

A file which is already tracked would not be ignored: you need to remove from the index first.
git rm --cached private.xml 
git add -u .
git commit -m "Record deletion of private.xml from the index"

(the --cached option make sure the file remains on the disk)
Then you can add it in the .gitignore (no need for '*')
private.xml 

Note: whenever an file is or is not ignored, you can check out which .gitignore rule applies with:
git check-ignore -v -- private.xml

