diff --git a/block/sheepdog.c b/block/sheepdog.c
index 25111d5a70..a45c73826d 100644
--- a/block/sheepdog.c
+++ b/block/sheepdog.c
@@ -242,6 +242,16 @@ typedef struct SheepdogInode {
  */
 #define FNV1A_64_INIT ((uint64_t)0xcbf29ce484222325ULL)
 
+static void deprecation_warning(void)
+{
+    static bool warned;
+
+    if (!warned) {
+        warn_report("the sheepdog block driver is deprecated");
+        warned = true;
+    }
+}
+
 /*
  * 64 bit Fowler/Noll/Vo FNV-1a hash code
  */
@@ -1548,6 +1558,8 @@ static int sd_open(BlockDriverState *bs, QDict *options, int flags,
     char *buf = NULL;
     QemuOpts *opts;
 
+    deprecation_warning();
+
     s->bs = bs;
     s->aio_context = bdrv_get_aio_context(bs);
 
@@ -2007,6 +2019,8 @@ static int sd_co_create(BlockdevCreateOptions *options, Error **errp)
 
     assert(options->driver == BLOCKDEV_DRIVER_SHEEPDOG);
 
+    deprecation_warning();
+
     s = g_new0(BDRVSheepdogState, 1);
 
     /* Steal SocketAddress from QAPI, set NULL to prevent double free */
diff --git a/configure b/configure
index f839c2a557..f498a37f9a 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -433,7 +433,7 @@ vdi="yes"
 vvfat="yes"
 qed="yes"
 parallels="yes"
-sheepdog="yes"
+sheepdog="no"
 libxml2=""
 debug_mutex="no"
 libpmem=""
@@ -1830,7 +1830,7 @@ disabled with --disable-FEATURE, default is enabled if available:
   vvfat           vvfat image format support
   qed             qed image format support
   parallels       parallels image format support
-  sheepdog        sheepdog block driver support
+  sheepdog        sheepdog block driver support (deprecated)
   crypto-afalg    Linux AF_ALG crypto backend driver
   capstone        capstone disassembler support
   debug-mutex     mutex debugging support
@@ -6729,6 +6729,7 @@ if test "$parallels" = "yes" ; then
   echo "CONFIG_PARALLELS=y" >> $config_host_mak
 fi
 if test "$sheepdog" = "yes" ; then
+  add_to deprecated_features "sheepdog"
   echo "CONFIG_SHEEPDOG=y" >> $config_host_mak
 fi
 if test "$pty_h" = "yes" ; then
diff --git a/docs/system/deprecated.rst b/docs/system/deprecated.rst
index 09ec8b1ae8..2ac3bfd5e9 100644
--- a/docs/system/deprecated.rst
+++ b/docs/system/deprecated.rst
@@ -390,6 +390,15 @@ The above, converted to the current supported format::
 
   json:{"file.driver":"rbd", "file.pool":"rbd", "file.image":"name"}
 
+``sheepdog`` driver (since 5.2.0)
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+The ``sheepdog`` block device driver is deprecated. The corresponding upstream
+server project is no longer actively maintained. Users are recommended to switch
+to an alternative distributed block device driver such as RBD. The
+``qemu-img convert`` command can be used to liberate existing data by moving
+it out of sheepdog volumes into an alternative storage backend.
+
 linux-user mode CPUs
 --------------------