diff --git a/video/out/vo.c b/video/out/vo.c
index 545ff8bf0c..64ac8aa3ed 100644
--- a/video/out/vo.c
+++ b/video/out/vo.c
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ const struct vo_driver *const video_out_drivers[] =
 #if HAVE_DIRECT3D
     &video_out_direct3d,
 #endif
-#if HAVE_WAYLAND
+#if HAVE_WAYLAND && HAVE_MEMFD_CREATE
     &video_out_wlshm,
 #endif
 #if HAVE_XV
diff --git a/video/out/vo_wlshm.c b/video/out/vo_wlshm.c
index 1577248407..213b05b150 100644
--- a/video/out/vo_wlshm.c
+++ b/video/out/vo_wlshm.c
@@ -73,30 +73,18 @@ static void buffer_destroy(void *p)
     munmap(buf->mpi.planes[0], buf->size);
 }
 
-/* modeled after randname and mkostemps from musl */
-static int alloc_shm(size_t size)
+static int allocate_memfd(size_t size)
 {
-    struct timespec ts;
-    unsigned long r;
-    int i, fd, retries = 100;
-    char template[] = "/mpv-XXXXXX";
+    int fd = memfd_create("mpv", MFD_CLOEXEC | MFD_ALLOW_SEALING);
+    if (fd < 0)
+        return -1;
 
-    do {
-        clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ts);
-        r = ts.tv_nsec * 65537 ^ ((uintptr_t)&ts / 16 + (uintptr_t)template);
-        for (i = 5; i < sizeof(template) - 1; i++, r >>= 5)
-            template[i] = 'A' + (r & 15) + (r & 16) * 2;
+    fcntl(fd, F_ADD_SEALS, F_SEAL_SHRINK | F_SEAL_SEAL);
 
-        fd = shm_open(template, O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_EXCL, 0600);
-        if (fd >= 0) {
-            shm_unlink(template);
-            if (posix_fallocate(fd, 0, size) == 0)
-                return fd;
-            close(fd);
-            break;
-        }
-    } while (--retries && errno == EEXIST);
+    if (posix_fallocate(fd, 0, size) == 0)
+        return fd;
 
+    close(fd);
     return -1;
 }
 
@@ -112,7 +100,7 @@ static struct buffer *buffer_create(struct vo *vo, int width, int height)
 
     stride = MP_ALIGN_UP(width * 4, 16);
     size = height * stride;
-    fd = alloc_shm(size);
+    fd = allocate_memfd(size);
     if (fd < 0)
         goto error0;
     data = mmap(NULL, size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0);
diff --git a/wscript b/wscript
index 5baa274645..d4d1353112 100644
--- a/wscript
+++ b/wscript
@@ -322,6 +322,12 @@ iconv support use --disable-iconv.",
         'deps': 'os-linux',
         'func': check_statement('sys/vfs.h',
                                 'struct statfs fs; fstatfs(0, &fs); fs.f_namelen')
+    }, {
+        'name': 'memfd_create',
+        'desc': "Linux's memfd_create()",
+        'deps': 'os-linux',
+        'func': check_statement('sys/mman.h',
+                                'memfd_create("mpv", MFD_CLOEXEC | MFD_ALLOW_SEALING)')
     }, {
         'name': '--libsmbclient',
         'desc': 'Samba support (makes mpv GPLv3)',
diff --git a/wscript_build.py b/wscript_build.py
index 1fed29ceea..d148ac7ae9 100644
--- a/wscript_build.py
+++ b/wscript_build.py
@@ -488,7 +488,7 @@ def build(ctx):
         ( "video/out/vo_tct.c" ),
         ( "video/out/vo_vaapi.c",                "vaapi-x11 && gpl" ),
         ( "video/out/vo_vdpau.c",                "vdpau" ),
-        ( "video/out/vo_wlshm.c",                "wayland" ),
+        ( "video/out/vo_wlshm.c",                "wayland && memfd_create" ),
         ( "video/out/vo_x11.c" ,                 "x11" ),
         ( "video/out/vo_xv.c",                   "xv" ),
         ( "video/out/vulkan/context.c",          "vulkan" ),