diff --git a/base/comps/kernel/kernel.comp.toml b/base/comps/kernel/kernel.comp.toml
index ef1f1705fb6..b2a6544b28f 100644
--- a/base/comps/kernel/kernel.comp.toml
+++ b/base/comps/kernel/kernel.comp.toml
@@ -4,13 +4,17 @@
 # Release: %{pkg_release}
 release = { calculation = "manual" }
 
-# Skip debug kernel variant to reduce build time
+# Skip debug kernel variant to reduce build time, and skip selftests as a
+# temporary mitigation while kselftests packaging is fixed separately.
 [components.kernel.build]
-without = ["debug"]
+without = [
+    "debug",
+    "selftests",
+]
 
 [components.kernel.build.defines]
 # RPM release number for the Azure Linux kernel package
-azl_pkgrelease = "8"
+azl_pkgrelease = "9"
 # 4th version component from the AZL kernel source (6.18.5.1). Included in specrelease so it appears
 # in the RPM Release tag, uname -r, and /lib/modules/ path (e.g. 6.18.5-1.3.azl4.aarch64).
 kextraversion = "1"
diff --git a/locks/kernel.lock b/locks/kernel.lock
index bade23f4a21..72d82d1b296 100644
--- a/locks/kernel.lock
+++ b/locks/kernel.lock
@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
 version = 1
 import-commit = '5271a1b047ef402ddee40242e02eda23fc273044'
 upstream-commit = '5271a1b047ef402ddee40242e02eda23fc273044'
-input-fingerprint = 'sha256:17b1688189cad004cf195b09cca4ceae4c6e36477ec49bb6aea0443c04db6626'
+input-fingerprint = 'sha256:e90e60a7f28955e4a101925501738317b41f0e17802fc323069b69cd72c23718'
 resolution-input-hash = 'sha256:466421704711c4fd3c71f0b2ed715a0e61d49e3e26f3a2637fee755795849c8e'
diff --git a/specs/k/kernel/kernel.azl.macros b/specs/k/kernel/kernel.azl.macros
index f1e6ac8a8b0..b43426890e5 100644
--- a/specs/k/kernel/kernel.azl.macros
+++ b/specs/k/kernel/kernel.azl.macros
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # Macros file automatically generated by azldev.
 # Do not edit manually; changes will be overwritten.
 %_without_debug 1
-%azl_pkgrelease 8
+%_without_selftests 1
+%azl_pkgrelease 9
 %azurelinux_version 3
 %kextraversion 1