diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/vm/Makefile b/tools/testing/selftests/vm/Makefile
index 436d2e81868beab35afbe3904c9b10657cfbdbfb..7d479279904319b08987d982e3fedbce262b0201 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/vm/Makefile
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/vm/Makefile
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ all: hugepage-mmap hugepage-shm  map_hugetlb thuge-gen
 	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $^
 
 run_tests: all
-	@/bin/sh ./run_vmtests || echo "vmtests: [FAIL]"
+	@/bin/sh ./run_vmtests || (echo "vmtests: [FAIL]"; exit 1)
 
 clean:
 	$(RM) hugepage-mmap hugepage-shm  map_hugetlb
diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/vm/run_vmtests b/tools/testing/selftests/vm/run_vmtests
index 4c53cae6c2733c28d0a6b5d983207c3efdb6030f..7a9072d52e70170c1d3a4df46c25b0545ce8d628 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/vm/run_vmtests
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/vm/run_vmtests
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 #we need 256M, below is the size in kB
 needmem=262144
 mnt=./huge
+exitcode=0
 
 #get pagesize and freepages from /proc/meminfo
 while read name size unit; do
@@ -41,6 +42,7 @@ echo "--------------------"
 ./hugepage-mmap
 if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
 	echo "[FAIL]"
+	exitcode=1
 else
 	echo "[PASS]"
 fi
@@ -55,6 +57,7 @@ echo "--------------------"
 ./hugepage-shm
 if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
 	echo "[FAIL]"
+	exitcode=1
 else
 	echo "[PASS]"
 fi
@@ -67,6 +70,7 @@ echo "--------------------"
 ./map_hugetlb
 if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
 	echo "[FAIL]"
+	exitcode=1
 else
 	echo "[PASS]"
 fi
@@ -75,3 +79,4 @@ fi
 umount $mnt
 rm -rf $mnt
 echo $nr_hugepgs > /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages
+exit $exitcode