So if i do eject on my machine, it works exactly as expected, however, if i ssh into the machine next to me, and do the same thing, it does not work...

my computer:

eject: using default device `cdrom'
eject: device name is `cdrom'
eject: expanded name is `/dev/cdrom'
eject: `/dev/cdrom' is a link to `/dev/sr0'
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not mounted
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a mount point
eject: checking if device "/dev/sr0" has a removable or hotpluggable flag
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a multipartition device
eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using CD-ROM eject command
eject: CD-ROM eject command succeeded

other computer:

eject: using default device `cdrom'
eject: device name is `cdrom'
eject: expanded name is `/dev/cdrom'
eject: `/dev/cdrom' is a link to `/dev/sr0'
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not mounted
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a mount point
eject: checking if device "/dev/sr0" has a removable or hotpluggable flag
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a multipartition device
eject: unable to open `/dev/sr0'

if i look in the /dev/ dir, then i find cdrom which is a symlink to sr0 - as mentioned by the verbose outputs of eject -v. On my machine, if i try and look at it, if the drive is open, it will close it, and then give this:

$ less sr0
sr0 is not a regular file (use -f to see it)

so

$ less -f sr0
sr0: No medium found

but if i do it on the other computer,

$ less -f sr0
sr0: Permission denied

so i look at the files more, and get this on both machines:

$ ls -la sr0
brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 Nov 12 10:13 sr0

Does anyone know a way around this? I do not have root access.