To all,

A few weeks ago, I asked the list how you save VG/LV/FS info and
restore for disaster recovery.  I received many good replies and my
belated thanks to those who took the time.

The answer which appealed to my innate laziness was Tom Kauffman's
suggestion to use the savevg/restvg commands while excluding all the
files in the VG.  An example is worth more than any explanation.
Given that you have rootvg and vg00, do the following:

Create the file /etc/exclude.vg00 with the following single line:
/

Then use the savevg command:
savevg -ief /vg00.save

The exclude line is compared grep-fashion to a find of all files in
the VG.  It matches all files, so they are excluded giving you a
zero-file backup -- except the image maps (with all VG and FS info)
are saved in /vg00.save.  Do a mksysb or just use a regular ADSM
backup.

After your disaster, restore your mksysb, restore vg00.save in / and
run:
restvg -qf /vg00.save

Presto, your VG is recreated on the same disks with all the old LVs
and FSs (and PSs, too I guess, though I should test that one).  Then
just restore from ADSM.

It's a very clean, automated solution with only the little exclude
file kludge.  Be aware that AIX 4.1.3, 4.1.4 and perhaps others have a
bug in the mksysb/savevg commands which barf when excluding some
files.  Upgrade to 4.1.5 or later to fix it.

Good luck,
Owen