diff --git a/Lib/test/test_sysconfig.py b/Lib/test/test_sysconfig.py
index e279957e26ced4..a0d114e67ad144 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_sysconfig.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_sysconfig.py
@@ -386,11 +386,11 @@ def test_triplet_in_ext_suffix(self):
             self.assertTrue('linux' in suffix, suffix)
         if re.match('(i[3-6]86|x86_64)$', machine):
             if ctypes.sizeof(ctypes.c_char_p()) == 4:
-                self.assertTrue(suffix.endswith('i386-linux-gnu.so') or
-                                suffix.endswith('x86_64-linux-gnux32.so'),
-                                suffix)
+                expected_suffixes = 'i386-linux-gnu.so', 'x86_64-linux-gnux32.so', 'i386-linux-musl.so'
             else: # 8 byte pointer size
-                self.assertTrue(suffix.endswith('x86_64-linux-gnu.so'), suffix)
+                expected_suffixes = 'x86_64-linux-gnu.so', 'x86_64-linux-musl.so'
+        self.assertTrue(suffix.endswith(expected_suffixes),
+                        f'unexpected suffix {suffix!r}')
 
     @unittest.skipUnless(sys.platform == 'darwin', 'OS X-specific test')
     def test_osx_ext_suffix(self):
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2021-02-10-17-54-04.bpo-43112.H5Lat6.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2021-02-10-17-54-04.bpo-43112.H5Lat6.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..0e250edfa3ec1f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2021-02-10-17-54-04.bpo-43112.H5Lat6.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Detect musl libc as a separate SOABI (tagged as ``linux-musl``).
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/configure b/configure
index 8e0cc71a50480d..cb1ef8612dcb78 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -5351,6 +5351,11 @@ EOF
 
 if $CPP $CPPFLAGS conftest.c >conftest.out 2>/dev/null; then
   PLATFORM_TRIPLET=`grep -v '^#' conftest.out | grep -v '^ *$' | tr -d ' 	'`
+  case "$build_os" in
+  linux-musl*)
+    PLATFORM_TRIPLET=`echo "$PLATFORM_TRIPLET" | sed 's/linux-gnu/linux-musl/'`
+    ;;
+  esac
   { $as_echo "$as_me:${as_lineno-$LINENO}: result: $PLATFORM_TRIPLET" >&5
 $as_echo "$PLATFORM_TRIPLET" >&6; }
 else
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 60c5d8e0b5b034..0e6b617080123b 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -860,6 +860,11 @@ EOF
 
 if $CPP $CPPFLAGS conftest.c >conftest.out 2>/dev/null; then
   PLATFORM_TRIPLET=`grep -v '^#' conftest.out | grep -v '^ *$' | tr -d ' 	'`
+  case "$build_os" in
+  linux-musl*)
+    PLATFORM_TRIPLET=`echo "$PLATFORM_TRIPLET" | sed 's/linux-gnu/linux-musl/'`
+    ;;
+  esac
   AC_MSG_RESULT([$PLATFORM_TRIPLET])
 else
   AC_MSG_RESULT([none])