Hi Varun,

 

Yes, that’s possible.

 

But if firmware deletes Bert records from non-volatile memory before Kernel boots, there is a possibility

that Kernel gets crash even before it can dump bert records and bert records will be lost forever.

 

Proper solution would be – Kernel let firmware know that it has consumed bert or in some other way

firmware can confirm that Kernel is booted till prompt and now it is safe to delete all bert records.

 

Thanks

 

Regards,

Jaiprakash

 

 

From: Varun Wadekar <vwadekar@nvidia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2026 10:18 PM
To: Jaiprakash Singh <jaiprakashs@marvell.com>; tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org; Manish Pandey <manish.pandey2@arm.com>
Cc: George Cherian <gcherian@marvell.com>; Ashwin Kumar Sundararamakrishnan <asundararama@marvell.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: BERT Record Erase Only After Kernel Consumes

 

Hi, In this sequence, is it possible for firmware to delete the non-volatile memory contents after copying to GHES DRAM buffer in step 6? -Varun From: Jaiprakash Singh <jaiprakashs@ marvell. com> Date: Tuesday, 17 March 2026 at 10: 26 To: 

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Hi,

 

In this sequence, is it possible for firmware to delete the non-volatile memory contents after copying to GHES DRAM buffer in step 6?

 

-Varun

 

From: Jaiprakash Singh <jaiprakashs@marvell.com>
Date: Tuesday, 17 March 2026 at 10:26
To: tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org <tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org>, Manish Pandey <manish.pandey2@arm.com>
Cc: Varun Wadekar <vwadekar@nvidia.com>, George Cherian <gcherian@marvell.com>, Ashwin Kumar Sundararamakrishnan <asundararama@marvell.com>
Subject: BERT Record Erase Only After Kernel Consumes

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Hi All,

 

BERT (Boot Error Record Table) captures errors which occurred in previous boot.

Below is the Flow with FFH (firmware first handling)

 

  1. Kernel is running
  2. Fatal error happens, which requires reboot
  3. Firmware decides to reboot system, before that capture current snapshot and save it as bert record on non-volatile memory
  4. System reboot
  5. On next boot, firmware read bert record from non-volatile memory
  6. Copy bert record to ghes dram buffer
  7. Kernel boots
  8. Kernel reads ghes dram buffer and prints bert record.

 

Problem in this flow is “When firmware should erase or delete bert records from non-volatile memory”?

 

Ideally, when Kernel has consumed Bert record after that only firmware should erase them from non-volatile memory.

But there is no communication from Kernel to firmware that it has consume bert record and now it is safe to erase them.

 

Is there already a solution for this problem available in Kernel or firmware?

Can generic SMC call from Kernel to firmware be a solution?

Any other suggestion?

 

Thanks

 

Regards,

Jaiprakash