diff --git a/lib/libnv/msgio.c b/lib/libnv/msgio.c
index 938bca81b0ac..da3ef8d20506 100644
--- a/lib/libnv/msgio.c
+++ b/lib/libnv/msgio.c
@@ -157,6 +157,14 @@ msg_send(int sock, const struct msghdr *msg)
 	return (0);
 }
 
+/*
+ * MacOS/Linux do not define struct cmsgcred but we need to bootstrap libnv
+ * when building on non-FreeBSD systems. Since they are not used during
+ * bootstrap we can just omit these two functions there.
+ */
+#ifndef __FreeBSD__
+#warning "cred_send() not supported on non-FreeBSD systems"
+#else
 int
 cred_send(int sock)
 {
@@ -232,6 +240,7 @@ cred_recv(int sock, struct cmsgcred *cred)
 
 	return (0);
 }
+#endif
 
 static int
 fd_package_send(int sock, const int *fds, size_t nfds)