diff --git a/qemu/include/qemu/osdep.h b/qemu/include/qemu/osdep.h
index 0d78a456..d05cb92f 100644
--- a/qemu/include/qemu/osdep.h
+++ b/qemu/include/qemu/osdep.h
@@ -90,6 +90,22 @@
 
 #include "qemu/typedefs.h"
 
+/*
+ * We have a lot of unaudited code that may fail in strange ways, or
+ * even be a security risk during migration, if you disable assertions
+ * at compile-time.  You may comment out these safety checks if you
+ * absolutely want to disable assertion overhead, but it is not
+ * supported upstream so the risk is all yours.  Meanwhile, please
+ * submit patches to remove any side-effects inside an assertion, or
+ * fixing error handling that should use Error instead of assert.
+ */
+#ifdef NDEBUG
+#error building with NDEBUG is not supported
+#endif
+#ifdef G_DISABLE_ASSERT
+#error building with G_DISABLE_ASSERT is not supported
+#endif
+
 #ifndef O_LARGEFILE
 #define O_LARGEFILE 0
 #endif