diff --git a/buildscripts/distmirror.py b/buildscripts/distmirror.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..5d9f2009d97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/buildscripts/distmirror.py
@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+
+# Download mongodb stuff (at present builds, sources, docs, but not
+# drivers).
+
+# Usage: <progname> [directory] # directory defaults to cwd.
+
+# FIXME: this script is fairly sloppy.
+import sys
+import os
+import urllib2
+import time
+import hashlib
+import warnings
+
+def report(url, filename):
+    print "downloading %s to %s" % (url, filename)    
+
+def checkmd5(md5str, filename):
+    m = hashlib.md5()
+    m.update(open(filename, 'rb').read())
+    d = m.hexdigest()
+    if d != md5str:
+        warnings.warn("md5sum mismatch for file %s: wanted %s; got %s" % (filename, md5str, d))
+    
+osarches=(("osx", ("i386", "i386-tiger", "x86_64"), ("tgz", )),
+          ("linux", ("i686", "x86_64"), ("tgz", )),
+          ("win32", ("i386", "x86_64"), ("zip", )),
+          ("sunos5", ("i86pc", "x86_64"), ("tgz", )),
+          ("src", ("src", ), ("tar.gz", "zip")), )
+
+# KLUDGE: this will need constant editing.
+versions = ("1.4.2", "1.5.1", "latest")
+
+url_format = "http://downloads.mongodb.org/%s/mongodb-%s-%s.%s"
+filename_format = "mongodb-%s-%s.%s"
+
+def do_it():
+    for version in versions:
+        for (os, architectures, archives) in osarches:
+            for architecture in architectures:
+                for archive in archives:
+                    osarch = os + '-' + architecture if architecture != 'src' else 'src'
+                    # ugh.
+                    if architecture == 'src' and version == 'latest':
+                        if archive == 'tar.gz':
+                            archive2 = 'tarball'
+                        elif archive == 'zip':
+                            archive2 == 'zipball'
+                        url = "http://github.com/mongodb/mongo/"+archive2+"/master"
+                        version2 = "master"
+                    else:
+                        version2 = version if architecture != 'src' else 'r'+version
+                        url = url_format % (os, osarch, version2, archive)
+                    # ugh ugh
+                    md5url = url+'.md5' if architecture != 'src' else None
+                    filename = filename_format % (osarch, version2, archive)
+                    report(url, filename)
+                    open(filename, 'w').write(urllib2.urlopen(url).read())
+                    if md5url:
+                        print "fetching md5 url " + md5url
+                        md5str = urllib2.urlopen(md5url).read()
+                        checkmd5(md5str, filename)
+
+    # FIXME: in principle, the doc PDFs could be out of date.
+    docs_url = time.strftime("http://downloads.mongodb.org/docs/mongodb-docs-%Y-%m-%d.pdf")
+    docs_filename = time.strftime("mongodb-docs-%Y-%m-%d.pdf")
+    report(docs_url, docs_filename)
+    open(docs_filename, 'w').write(urllib2.urlopen(docs_url).read())
+
+    # Drivers... FIXME: drivers.
+    #langs=("c", "java", "python", "php", "perl")
+
+if len(sys.argv) > 1: 
+    dir=sys.argv[1]
+    os.makedirs(dir)
+    os.chdir(dir)
+
+print """NOTE: the md5sums for all the -latest tarballs are out of
+date.  You will probably see warnings as this script runs.  (If you
+don't, feel free to delete this note.)"""
+do_it()