diff --git a/Lib/test/test_socket.py b/Lib/test/test_socket.py
index e70a8f69a7a..b97a7688a60 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_socket.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_socket.py
@@ -5573,6 +5573,9 @@ def create_alg(self, typ, name):
         else:
             return sock
 
+    # bpo-31705: On kernel older than 4.5, sendto() failed with ENOKEY,
+    # at least on ppc64le architecture
+    @support.requires_linux_version(4, 5)
     def test_sha256(self):
         expected = bytes.fromhex("ba7816bf8f01cfea414140de5dae2223b00361a396"
                                  "177a9cb410ff61f20015ad")
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Tests/2017-11-30-12-27-10.bpo-31705.yULW7O.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Tests/2017-11-30-12-27-10.bpo-31705.yULW7O.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..aa2d30c3d6b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Tests/2017-11-30-12-27-10.bpo-31705.yULW7O.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Skip test_socket.test_sha256() on Linux kernel older than 4.5. The test
+fails with ENOKEY on kernel 3.10 (on ppc64le). A fix was merged into the
+kernel 4.5.