diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 3e570fe4..9bc3bc2d 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -155,3 +155,4 @@
 /include/gcli/gitea/repos.h~
 /src/gitea/repos.c~
 /src/gitea/repos.o
+/tools/gentarball.sh~
diff --git a/tools/gentarball.sh b/tools/gentarball.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..23d324d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/gentarball.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+#!/opt/schily/bin/bosh
+
+die() {
+	printf -- "error: %s\n" "$*" 1>&2
+	exit 1
+}
+
+info() {
+	printf -- "info: %s\n" "$*" 1>&2
+}
+
+findversion() {
+	grep '^GCLI_VERSION' Makefile \
+		 | head -1 \
+		 | awk -F\= '{print $2}' \
+		 | sed -E 's/[[:space:]]*([^[:space:]]*)[[:space:]]*$/\1/g'
+}
+
+stage() {
+	info "Creating staging directory..."
+	mkdir -p ${STAGEDIR}
+
+	find . -type f \
+		 ! -path \./\.git/\* \
+		 ! -name \.gitignore \
+		 ! -name \*.o \
+		 ! -name \*.d \
+		 ! -name \*~ \
+		 ! -name gcli \
+		 ! -name \*.a \
+		 ! -name todo.org \
+		 ! -name config.mk \
+		 ! -name TAGS \
+		 ! -name \*.gz \
+		 ! -path \./tools/\* \
+		 ! -name y.tab.h \
+		 -exec cp {} ${STAGEDIR} \;
+}
+
+
+
+NAMEBASE="gcli-`findversion`"
+TARFBASE="${NAMEBASE}.tar"
+STAGEDIR="/tmp/${NAMEBASE}/"
+
+if [ ! -f Makefile ]; then
+	die "Please change to the source top"
+fi
+
+pushd .. > /dev/null 2>&1
+
+info "Staging into ${STAGEDIR} ..."
+pushd gcli > /dev/null 2>&1
+stage
+popd > /dev/null 2>&1
+
+info "Creating base tarball ${TARFBASE} ..."
+pushd /tmp > /dev/null 2>&1
+
+star -c -f "${TARFBASE}" "${NAMEBASE}"
+
+info "Compressing tarballs..."
+xz < "${TARFBASE}" > "${TARFBASE}".xz
+gzip < "${TARFBASE}" > "${TARFBASE}".gz
+bzip2 < "${TARFBASE}" > "${TARFBASE}".bz2
+
+info "Shuffling around output files..."
+
+rm "${TARFBASE}"
+rm -rf "${STAGEDIR}"
+mkdir -p "${STAGEDIR}"
+
+mv "${TARFBASE}".* "${STAGEDIR}"
+
+popd > /dev/null 2>&1
+
+info "Tarballs are at ${STAGEDIR}"
+
+popd > /dev/null 2>&1