diff --git a/webtools/litmus/.cvsignore b/webtools/litmus/.cvsignore
index ac4dd6014de..0bc31ffb9ff 100644
--- a/webtools/litmus/.cvsignore
+++ b/webtools/litmus/.cvsignore
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 tags
 localconfig
-
+data
diff --git a/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl b/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl
index e1e84436e28..d501ba7caad 100755
--- a/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl
+++ b/webtools/litmus/populatedb.pl
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@
 use strict;
 
 BEGIN {
+	unless (-e "data/") {
+    	system("mkdir data/");
+    }
     unless (-e "localconfig") {
          open(OUT, ">localconfig");
          print OUT <<EOT;