VxVM Configuration Backups

Configuration Backups

The vxconfigbackupd(1m) daemon was introduced in Veritas Volume Manager 4.X to provide an automated way to back up disk headers and the configuration database. Vxconfigbackupd(1m) is started automatically at system boot time and actively monitors the configuration database and disk headers. When vxconfigbackupd(1m) detects a change to the active configuration, vxconfigbackupd(1m) will write the configuration to a set of files in the /etc/vx/cbr/bk/. directory. ("" identifies the disk group, and "" identifies the disk group id.) The vxconfigbackupd(1m) man page provides the following descriptions for the files in the /etc/vx/cbr/bk/. directory:

/etc/vx/cbr/bk/./.diskinfo
Location of backup file for disk attributes.

/etc/vx/cbr/bk/./.binconfig
Location of backup file for binary configuration copy.

/etc/vx/cbr/bk/./.cfgrec
Location of backup file for configuration records
in vxprint -m format.

In addition to the automated backups that are performed by vxconfigbackupd(1m), manual backups can be performed with the vxconfigbackup(1m) utility. This is valuable for backing up specific versions of the configuration and archiving the configuration to a user-supplied destination. The following example uses the vxconfigbackup(1m) "-l" (location to store backup) to back up the current configuration to the /etc/dgbackups directory:

$ /usr/lib/vxvm/bin/vxconfigbackup -l /etc/dgbackups

Start backing up diskgroup oradg to \
/etc/dgbackups/oradg.1127240283.19.winnie ...
VxVM NOTICE V-5-2-3100 Backup complete for diskgroup: oradg

If you are using a version of Veritas Volume Manager prior to 4.X, you will be unable to use the vxconfigbackupd(1m) and vxconfigbackup(1m) utilities to manage backups. Don't fear -- the sample shell script in Listing 1 can be used to archive the configuration to a text file, which can be passed to vxmake(1m)'s "-d" option to re-create the configuration if disaster were to strike.