diff --git a/m4/guestfs_c.m4 b/m4/guestfs_c.m4
index ac727c26d..6621a2747 100644
--- a/m4/guestfs_c.m4
+++ b/m4/guestfs_c.m4
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ nw="$nw -Wtraditional"               # Warns on #elif which we use often
 nw="$nw -Wsystem-headers"            # Don't let system headers trigger warnings
 nw="$nw -Wpadded"                    # Our structs are not padded
 nw="$nw -Wvla"                       # Allow variable length arrays.
+nw="$nw -Wvla-larger-than=4031"
 nw="$nw -Winline"                    # inline functions in Python binding
 nw="$nw -Wshadow"                    # Not useful, as it applies to global vars
 nw="$nw -Wunsafe-loop-optimizations" # just a warning that an optimization