diff --git a/doc/source/development_guidelines.rst b/doc/source/development_guidelines.rst
index fd3607015f..6f0012c35f 100644
--- a/doc/source/development_guidelines.rst
+++ b/doc/source/development_guidelines.rst
@@ -27,6 +27,12 @@ To execute the tests:
 
     pip install tox
 
+* Generate list of  distribution packages to install for testing::
+
+    tox -e bindep
+
+  Now install these packages using your distribution package manager
+  like apt-get, dnf, yum, or zypper.
 
 * Run Tox from the root of the swift repo::
 
diff --git a/doc/source/getting_started.rst b/doc/source/getting_started.rst
index ba8790821b..8308c130ae 100644
--- a/doc/source/getting_started.rst
+++ b/doc/source/getting_started.rst
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ Swift is written in Python and has these dependencies:
 * rsync 3.0
 * The Python packages listed in `the requirements file <https://github.com/openstack/swift/blob/master/requirements.txt>`_
 * Testing additionally requires `the test dependencies <https://github.com/openstack/swift/blob/master/test-requirements.txt>`_
+* Testing requires `these distribution packages <https://github.com/openstack/swift/blob/master/other-requirements.txt>`_
 
 There is no current support for Python 3.
 
diff --git a/other-requirements.txt b/other-requirements.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..394f2b0f7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/other-requirements.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# This is a cross-platform list tracking distribution packages needed by tests;
+# see http://docs.openstack.org/infra/bindep/ for additional information.
+
+build-essential [platform:dpkg]
+gcc [platform:rpm]
+gettext
+liberasurecode-dev [platform:dpkg]
+liberasurecode-devel [platform:rpm]
+libffi-dev [platform:dpkg]
+libffi-devel [platform:rpm]
+memcached
+python-dev [platform:dpkg]
+python-devel [platform:rpm]
+rsync
+xfsprogs
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index f016316c49..68c1f6a0bd 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -80,3 +80,11 @@ commands = bandit -c bandit.yaml -r swift bin -n 5 -p gate
 ignore = F812,H101,H202,H233,H301,H306,H401,H403,H404,H405,H501,H703
 exclude = .venv,.tox,dist,*egg
 show-source = True
+
+[testenv:bindep]
+# Do not install any requirements. We want this to be fast and work even if
+# system dependencies are missing, since it's used to tell you what system
+# dependencies are missing! This also means that bindep must be installed
+# separately, outside of the requirements files.
+deps = bindep
+commands = bindep test