On 6/5/21 10:42 PM, Zygo Blaxell wrote:

If cp -a implements the inode attribute propagation (or inheritance), then
only users of cp -a are impacted.  They are more likely to be aware that
they may be creating new files with reduced-integrity storage attributes.

True, although I think this aspect of attribute-copying will typically 
come as a surprise even to "cp -a" users.

If the file is empty, you can chattr +C or -C.  If the file is not
empty, chattr fails with an error.

Although coreutils 'cp -a' currently truncates any already-existing 
output file (by opening it with O_TRUNC), it then calls copy_file_range 
before calling fsetxattr on the destination. Presumably cp should do the 
equivalent of chattr +C before doing the copy_file_range stuff. (Perhaps 
you've already mentioned this point; if so, my apologies for the 
duplication.)