Ответ на ваш вопрос зависит от конкретной файловой системы. Для ext3, например, взгляните на fs / ext3 / xattr.c , он содержит следующее описание:
16 /*
17 * Extended attributes are stored directly in inodes (on file systems with
18 * inodes bigger than 128 bytes) and on additional disk blocks. The i_file_acl
19
* field contains the block number if an inode uses an additional block. All
20 * attributes must fit in the inode and one additional block. Blocks that
21 * contain the identical set of attributes may be shared among several inodes.
22 * Identical blocks are detected by keeping a cache of blocks that have
23 * recently been accessed.
24 *
25 * The attributes in inodes and on blocks have a different header; the entries
26 * are stored in the same format:
27 *
28 * +------------------+
29 * | header |
30 * | entry 1 | |
31 * | entry 2 | | growing downwards
32 * | entry 3 | v
33 * | four null bytes |
34 * | . . . |
35 * | value 1 | ^
36 * | value 3 | | growing upwards
37 * | value 2 | |
38 * +------------------+
39 *
40 * The header is followed by multiple entry descriptors. In disk blocks, the
41 * entry descriptors are kept sorted. In inodes, they are unsorted. The
42 * attribute values are aligned to the end of the block in no specific order.
43 *
44 * Locking strategy
45 * ----------------
46 * EXT3_I(inode)->i_file_acl is protected by EXT3_I(inode)->xattr_sem.
47 * EA blocks are only changed if they are exclusive to an inode, so
48 * holding xattr_sem also means that nothing but the EA block's reference
49 * count can change. Multiple writers to the same block are synchronized
50 * by the buffer lock.
51 */
Что касается вопроса «как связаны атрибуты», то ссылка наоборот, у inode есть ссылка на расширенные атрибуты, см. EXT3_XATTR_NEXT
И ext3_xattr_list_entries
в xattr.h и xattr.c соответственно.
Напомним, что атрибуты связаны с индексом и зависят от fs, так что да, вы потеряете атрибуты при записи компакт-диска или отправке файла по электронной почте.