diff --git a/meta/classes-global/package.bbclass b/meta/classes-global/package.bbclass
index 7787042e21..580884cd83 100644
--- a/meta/classes-global/package.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes-global/package.bbclass
@@ -58,8 +58,11 @@ ALL_MULTILIB_PACKAGE_ARCHS = "${@all_multilib_tune_values(d, 'PACKAGE_ARCHS')}"
 
 # rpm is used for the per-file dependency identification
 # dwarfsrcfiles is used to determine the list of debug source files
-PACKAGE_DEPENDS += "rpm-native dwarfsrcfiles-native"
-
+# minimal tar version 1.35 is needed as it has fixed bugs for storing ACL entries in textual representation
+# and extracting files with xattrs that are read-only; this needs to work only if acl or xattr are turned on
+PACKAGE_DEPENDS += "rpm-native dwarfsrcfiles-native ${@bb.utils.contains_any('DISTRO_FEATURES', 'acl xattr', 'tar-replacement-native', '', d)}"
+# perform_packagecopy and opkg-build require tar to be in the PATH
+EXTRANATIVEPATH += "${@bb.utils.contains_any('DISTRO_FEATURES', 'acl xattr', 'tar-native', '', d)}"
 
 # If your postinstall can execute at rootfs creation time rather than on
 # target but depends on a native/cross tool in order to execute, you need to