diff --git a/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh b/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh
index b8054b0d50105..6ff86e62787f5 100755
--- a/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh
+++ b/kernel/gen_kheaders.sh
@@ -21,29 +21,30 @@ arch/$SRCARCH/include/
 # Uncomment it for debugging.
 # if [ ! -f /tmp/iter ]; then iter=1; echo 1 > /tmp/iter;
 # else iter=$(($(cat /tmp/iter) + 1)); echo $iter > /tmp/iter; fi
-# find $src_file_list -name "*.h" | xargs ls -l > /tmp/src-ls-$iter
-# find $obj_file_list -name "*.h" | xargs ls -l > /tmp/obj-ls-$iter
+# find $all_dirs -name "*.h" | xargs ls -l > /tmp/ls-$iter
+
+all_dirs=
+if [ "$building_out_of_srctree" ]; then
+	for d in $dir_list; do
+		all_dirs="$all_dirs $srctree/$d"
+	done
+fi
+all_dirs="$all_dirs $dir_list"
 
 # include/generated/compile.h is ignored because it is touched even when none
 # of the source files changed. This causes pointless regeneration, so let us
 # ignore them for md5 calculation.
-pushd $srctree > /dev/null
-src_files_md5="$(find $dir_list -name "*.h"			   |
-		grep -v "include/generated/compile.h"		   |
-		grep -v "include/generated/autoconf.h"		   |
-		xargs ls -l | md5sum | cut -d ' ' -f1)"
-popd > /dev/null
-obj_files_md5="$(find $dir_list -name "*.h"			   |
-		grep -v "include/generated/compile.h"		   |
-		grep -v "include/generated/autoconf.h"		   |
+headers_md5="$(find $all_dirs -name "*.h"			|
+		grep -v "include/generated/compile.h"	|
+		grep -v "include/generated/autoconf.h"	|
 		xargs ls -l | md5sum | cut -d ' ' -f1)"
+
 # Any changes to this script will also cause a rebuild of the archive.
 this_file_md5="$(ls -l $sfile | md5sum | cut -d ' ' -f1)"
 if [ -f $tarfile ]; then tarfile_md5="$(md5sum $tarfile | cut -d ' ' -f1)"; fi
 if [ -f kernel/kheaders.md5 ] &&
-	[ "$(head -n 1 kernel/kheaders.md5)" = "$src_files_md5" ] &&
-	[ "$(head -n 2 kernel/kheaders.md5 | tail -n 1)" = "$obj_files_md5" ] &&
-	[ "$(head -n 3 kernel/kheaders.md5 | tail -n 1)" = "$this_file_md5" ] &&
+	[ "$(head -n 1 kernel/kheaders.md5)" = "$headers_md5" ] &&
+	[ "$(head -n 2 kernel/kheaders.md5 | tail -n 1)" = "$this_file_md5" ] &&
 	[ "$(tail -n 1 kernel/kheaders.md5)" = "$tarfile_md5" ]; then
 		exit
 fi
@@ -79,8 +80,7 @@ find $cpio_dir -printf "./%P\n" | LC_ALL=C sort | \
     --owner=0 --group=0 --numeric-owner --no-recursion \
     -Jcf $tarfile -C $cpio_dir/ -T - > /dev/null
 
-echo "$src_files_md5" >  kernel/kheaders.md5
-echo "$obj_files_md5" >> kernel/kheaders.md5
+echo $headers_md5 > kernel/kheaders.md5
 echo "$this_file_md5" >> kernel/kheaders.md5
 echo "$(md5sum $tarfile | cut -d ' ' -f1)" >> kernel/kheaders.md5