[RHEL] Can I use two tape units in the same LPAR at same time?

Issue

• On an IBM Power 6 (P595) system, the dump command reports a tape device as read only and mt status reports the device as write protected

  # mt -f /dev/st0 status
  SCSI 2 tape drive:
  File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
  Tape block size 4804435 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
  Soft error count since last status=0
  General status bits on (45010000):
  BOT WR_PROT ONLINE IM_REP_EN
  
  # dump -0 -f /dev/st0 /boot
    DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Tue Feb 22 10:11:54 2011
    DUMP: Dumping /dev/mapper/rootp2 (/boot) to /dev/st0
    DUMP: Label: none
    DUMP: Writing 10 Kilobyte records
    DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
    DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
    DUMP: estimated 48747 blocks.
    DUMP: Cannot open output "/dev/st0": Read-only file system
    DUMP: Do you want to retry the open?: ("yes" or "no") no
    DUMP: The ENTIRE dump is aborted.
  

• On a P Series p595 system with two tape devices exposed by a VIO server, one of the tape devices will report as write protected even though nothing has been done to mark the tape write protected.