You can backup and restore the Cloudera configuration settings by using the APIs referenced in the following Cloudera documentation:
http://www.cloudera.com/content/cloudera-content/cloudera-docs/CM5/latest/Cloudera-Manager-Introduction/cm5i_api.html
Steps to backup and restore CM configuration settings:
Where $ADMIN_UNAME is your CM admin UserName, for example "admin", $ADMIN_PASS is the password for CM admin UserName and $CM_HOST is the Cloudera Manager HostName.
From Cloudera Manager server host, logon as root:
1. To backup/export the configuration through CM API to a json file:
# curl -u $ADMIN_UNAME:$ADMIN_PASS "http://$CM_HOST:7180/api/v6/cm/deployment" > /cm-deployment.json
2. To restore/import the configuration through CM API and the previously exported json file.
Please be *AWARE* this command will stop all the cluster services. So don't run this while you have jobs running.
# curl --upload-file /cm-deployment.json -u $ADMIN_UNAME:$ADMIN_PASS http://$CM_HOST:7180/api/v6/cm/deployment?deleteCurrentDeployment=true