The st_clean device-clean script supports three tape devices. The supported tape devices are as follows:
SCSI 1/4-inch tape
Archive 1/4-inch tape
Open-reel 1/2-inch tape
The st_clean script uses the rewoffl option to the mt command to affect the device cleanup. For more information, see the mt(1) man page. If the script runs during system boot, the script queries the device. The script determines if the device is online. If the device is online, the script determines if the device has media in it. The 1/4-inch tape devices that have media in them are placed in the allocate error state. The allocate error state forces the administrator to clean up the device manually.
During normal system operation, when the allocate or deallocate command is executed in interactive mode, the user is prompted to remove the media. The script pauses until the media is removed from the device.