Does the "st" driver in RHEL 6 kernel support Buffered Tape Marks (aka MTWEOFI)?

Issue

• The DataProtector application writes a file marker at end of a (tape) segment, for this following command is used:

  "Number of FMs to write: 1, Immediate: 0";  
  

The above command causes the tape drive to write a file marker and flush all its buffers. As soon as a LTO drive has flushed its buffers, it will stop, which in turn causes shoe-shining on the tape-drive.

• In comparison to above command, HP UNIX servers issue this parameter with the write filemarker command:

  "Number of FMs to write: 1, Immediate: 1"
  

• The Linux kernel did not support turning this immediate function to 1 until a patch was written to add this functionality.

• This patch was added to the upstream kernel as of kernel 2.6.37. Background to the patch is provided at Buffered tape marks in CASTOR, courtesy of CERN.

• This patch adds functionality for BufferedTapeMarks. Does the st driver in RHEL 6 contain the above patch?

• When will will MTWEOFI be available in RHEL 6?