diff --git a/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl b/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl
index 1e221b9e84ee..05427726af4d 100755
--- a/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl
+++ b/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl
@@ -23,16 +23,16 @@
 use strict;
 
 BEGIN {
-	unless (-e localconfig) {
+	unless (-e "localconfig") {
  		open(OUT, ">localconfig");
  		print OUT <<EOT;
-our $db_host = "";
-our $db_name = "";
-our $db_user = "";
-our $db_pass = "";
+our \$db_host = "";
+our \$db_name = "";
+our \$db_user = "";
+our \$db_pass = "";
 
-our $user_cookiename = "litmus_login";
-our $sysconfig_cookiename = "litmustestingconfiguration";
+our \$user_cookiename = "litmus_login";
+our \$sysconfig_cookiename = "litmustestingconfiguration";
 EOT
 		close(OUT);
 		exit;