diff --git a/tools/update-packaging/unwrap_full_update.sh b/tools/update-packaging/unwrap_full_update.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000000..5b0e16470cb8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/update-packaging/unwrap_full_update.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# This tool unpacks a full update package generated by make_full_update.sh
+# Author: Darin Fisher
+#
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# By default just assume that these tools exist on our path
+MAR=${MAR:-mar}
+BZIP2=${BZIP2:-bzip2}
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+#
+print_usage() {
+  echo "Usage: $(basename $0) [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE"
+}
+
+if [ $# = 0 ]; then
+  print_usage
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+if [ $1 = -h ]; then
+  print_usage
+  echo ""
+  echo "The contents of ARCHIVE will be unpacked into the current directory."
+  echo ""
+  echo "Options:"
+  echo "  -h  show this help text"
+  echo ""
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+archive="$1"
+
+# Generate a list of all files in the archive.
+list=$($MAR -t "$archive" | cut -d'	' -f3)
+eval "files=($list)"
+
+# Extract the files, creating subdirectories.  The resulting files are bzip2
+# compressed, so we need to walk the list of files, and decompress them.
+$MAR -x "$archive"
+
+num_files=${#files[*]}
+
+# Skip first "file" since it is actually the column header string "NAME" that
+# does not correspond to an actual file in the archive.
+for ((i=1; $i<$num_files; i=$i+1)); do
+  f=${files[$i]}
+
+  echo "  decompressing $f"
+
+  mv -f "$f" "$f.bz2"
+  $BZIP2 -d "$f.bz2"
+done