rsync only copies extended attributes for the user namespace. It does not copy system namespace attributes as alluded, in the man page. touch file setextattr user finger bun file setextattr system vanilla slice file rsync -aXv file /tmp/ lsextattr user /tmp/file # ok lsextattr system /tmp/file # Empty hunger I appreciate that this would be non-trivial to fix, particularly as Linux also has trusted and security namespaces. May I suggest that the rsync man page explicitly references USER namespace under the -X option, would be sufficient? /bin/cp doesn't copy any namespace, which is consistent with the manual. :-/ Fortunately tar does preserve both system and user namespaces. :>