diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index c9be56c64..0315cd197 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -6,6 +6,13 @@
 
                                   Changelog
 
+Daniel Stenberg (11 Jan 2010)
+- The tests/runtests.pl script now checks to see if the test case that runs is
+  present in the tests/data/Makefile.am and outputs a notice message on the
+  screen if not. Each test file has to be included in that Makefile.am to get
+  included in release archives and forgetting to add files there is a common
+  mistake. This is an attempt to make it harder to forget.
+
 Daniel Stenberg (9 Jan 2010)
 - Johan van Selst found and fixed a OpenSSL session ref count leak:
 
diff --git a/tests/data/Makefile.am b/tests/data/Makefile.am
index 30e314481..bb7d0e7a2 100644
--- a/tests/data/Makefile.am
+++ b/tests/data/Makefile.am
@@ -84,3 +84,5 @@ filecheck:
 	rm -rf test-place ; \
 	exit $$RC
 
+show:
+	@echo $(EXTRA_DIST)
diff --git a/tests/runtests.pl b/tests/runtests.pl
index 33baa815e..a2d5902e5 100755
--- a/tests/runtests.pl
+++ b/tests/runtests.pl
@@ -425,6 +425,15 @@ sub checkcmd {
     }
 }
 
+#######################################################################
+# Get the list of tests that the tests/data/Makefile.am knows about!
+#
+my $disttests;
+sub get_disttests {
+    my @dist = `cd $srcdir/data && make show`;
+    $disttests = join("", @dist);
+}
+
 #######################################################################
 # Check for a command in the PATH of the machine running curl.
 #
@@ -1882,6 +1891,11 @@ sub singletest {
     # timestamp test preparation start
     $timeprepini{$testnum} = Time::HiRes::time() if($timestats);
 
+    if($disttests !~ /\Wtest$testnum\W/ ) {
+        print STDERR "NOTICE: data/test$testnum is not present in tests/data/Makefile.am!\n";
+    }
+
+
     # load the test case file definition
     if(loadtest("${TESTDIR}/test${testnum}")) {
         if($verbose) {
@@ -3307,6 +3321,7 @@ mkdir($LOGDIR, 0777);
 #
 
 if(!$listonly) {
+    get_disttests();
     checksystem();
 }