diff --git a/meta/classes-recipe/kernel-arch.bbclass b/meta/classes-recipe/kernel-arch.bbclass
index 6e19dbbba8..df4884b6c4 100644
--- a/meta/classes-recipe/kernel-arch.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes-recipe/kernel-arch.bbclass
@@ -80,3 +80,10 @@ KERNEL_OBJCOPY = "${CCACHE}${HOST_PREFIX}objcopy ${HOST_OBJCOPY_KERNEL_ARCH}"
 KERNEL_STRIP = "${CCACHE}${HOST_PREFIX}strip ${HOST_STRIP_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 ?= "${KERNEL_LOCALVERSION}"
diff --git a/meta/classes-recipe/kernel.bbclass b/meta/classes-recipe/kernel.bbclass
index 855c784149..2aedf3a31b 100644
--- a/meta/classes-recipe/kernel.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes-recipe/kernel.bbclass
@@ -426,7 +426,7 @@ do_compile_kernelmodules() {
 	if (grep -q -i -e '^CONFIG_MODULES=y$' ${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
@@ -620,7 +620,6 @@ do_shared_workdir () {
 # We don't need to stage anything, not the modules/firmware since those would clash with linux-firmware
 SYSROOT_DIRS = ""
 
-KERNEL_LOCALVERSION ??= ""
 KERNEL_CONFIG_COMMAND ?= "oe_runmake_call -C ${S} O=${B} olddefconfig || oe_runmake -C ${S} O=${B} oldnoconfig"
 
 python check_oldest_kernel() {
@@ -642,6 +641,9 @@ kernel_do_configure() {
 	# $ scripts/setlocalversion . => +
 	# $ make kernelversion => 2.6.37
 	# $ make kernelrelease => 2.6.37+
+	# 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