diff --git a/meta/classes/kernel-arch.bbclass b/meta/classes/kernel-arch.bbclass
index 4cd08b96fb..0a79dea0af 100644
--- a/meta/classes/kernel-arch.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes/kernel-arch.bbclass
@@ -66,3 +66,10 @@ KERNEL_LD = "${CCACHE}${HOST_PREFIX}ld.bfd ${HOST_LD_KERNEL_ARCH}"
 KERNEL_AR = "${CCACHE}${HOST_PREFIX}ar ${HOST_AR_KERNEL_ARCH}"
 TOOLCHAIN ?= "gcc"
 
+# 6.3+ requires the variable LOCALVERSION to be set to not get a "+" in
+# the local version. Having it empty means nothing will be added, and any
+# value will be appended to the local kernel version. This replaces the
+# use of .scmversion file for setting a localversion without using
+# the CONFIG_LOCALVERSION option.
+KERNEL_LOCALVERSION ??= ""
+export LOCALVERSION ?= "${KERNEL_LOCALVERSION}"
diff --git a/meta/classes/kernel.bbclass b/meta/classes/kernel.bbclass
index 5951347361..940f1a3cf4 100644
--- a/meta/classes/kernel.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes/kernel.bbclass
@@ -418,7 +418,7 @@ do_compile_kernelmodules() {
 	if (grep -q -i -e '^CONFIG_MODULES=y$' ${B}/.config); then
 		oe_runmake -C ${B} ${PARALLEL_MAKE} modules ${KERNEL_EXTRA_ARGS}
 
-		# Module.symvers gets updated during the 
+		# Module.symvers gets updated during the
 		# building of the kernel modules. We need to
 		# update this in the shared workdir since some
 		# external kernel modules has a dependency on
@@ -635,7 +635,13 @@ kernel_do_configure() {
 	# $ scripts/setlocalversion . => +
 	# $ make kernelversion => 2.6.37
 	# $ make kernelrelease => 2.6.37+
-	touch ${B}/.scmversion ${S}/.scmversion
+	# See kernel-arch.bbclass for post v6.3 removal of the extra
+	# + in localversion. .scmversion is no longer used, and the
+	# variable LOCALVERSION must be used
+	if [ ! -e ${B}/.scmversion -a ! -e ${S}/.scmversion ]; then
+		echo ${KERNEL_LOCALVERSION} > ${B}/.scmversion
+		echo ${KERNEL_LOCALVERSION} > ${S}/.scmversion
+	fi
 
 	if [ "${S}" != "${B}" ] && [ -f "${S}/.config" ] && [ ! -f "${B}/.config" ]; then
 		mv "${S}/.config" "${B}/.config"