Currently there is no way to backup and restore a full configuration.
 
While the "vxmake -d" command will make volume, plex, and subdisk objects; 
this command will NOT make diskgroup and vmdisk objects. The "vxprint -m" 
command will print out information that vxmake does not know what to do with.

Use the "vxprint -g <disk_group> -vpshm" command to
backup a diskgroup's configuration. The output of this command may 
then be sent to "vxmake -d".
 
A backup and recover script would not work for every configuration,
because back up of a configuration is not very easy to generalize. 
Most configurations differ substantially from one another.
 
Several problems may crop up during the recovery phase;
a brand new system works best for recovery purposes.
 
The administrator should record the information from
a "vxdisk list" and from a "vxprint -g <disk_group> -vpshm" on a per
disk group basis. This information along with the a copy of the /etc/vfstab 
and the user data backup would allow the administrator suggest the following
recovery steps:

        -Reinstall the OS.
        -Install the VxVM package.
        -Run vxinstall to set up the rootdg; being careful to name the
         disks as they were listed in the output of the original "vxdisk list."
        -Run vxdiskadm to initialize and add disks to the other
         diskgroups, again, being careful to name the disks exactly as they
were
         named, in the original disk group.
        -Run the output of the "vxprint -g <disk_group> -vpshm"
         through "vxmake -d".
        -Initialize all of the volumes with "vxvol init clean <volume_name>".
        -Start all of the volumes with "vxvol -g <disk_group> startall".
        -Replace the /etc/vfstab file.
        -Make all the filesystems.
        -Restore from backups (if needed).
 
Encourage users to keep a record of all the vxassists that were used 
to create their original configuration. This will mean that they will not 
have to replace the original disk subsystem with disks ofthe same size 
or larger and EXACTLY the same geometry. All they would need to do is ensure
that they have as many disks as they did in their largest striped volume 
and the total available disk size is the same, or larger, than the original
system.
 
Ideally, the administrator would want to write a script that would run
from the saved information, all of the following: 
        -"vxdg init" 
        -"vxdisk init"
        -"vxmake -d"
        -(and possibly mkfs)