diff --git a/pdist/pdist b/pdist/pdist
index f474963..bdc21cc 100755
--- a/pdist/pdist
+++ b/pdist/pdist
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ $SIG{PIPE} = sub {clean_tmp();exit 1;};
 
 # options
 
-our ($debug,$quiet,$fileop_noop,$fileop_debug,$delete);
+our ($debug,$quiet,$fileop_noop,$fileop_debug,$delete,$set_pdist_status);
 our ($verbose,$timeout,@files,$ssh_tunnel,$post_command,$parallel,$prompt,$msg_prefix);
 our ($distfilename) = (DISTFILE);
 
@@ -829,6 +829,13 @@ sub prog_update
 				warn "$fn: $!\n";
 			}
 		}
+
+		if ( !$fileop_noop && $set_pdist_status) {
+			my $t=time;
+			open L,'>','/.pdist_status' or die "/.pdist_status: $!\n";
+			print L 'OK',$t,scalar(localtime($t));
+			close L;
+		}
 	}
 
 	if ($function==F_REQUEST) {
@@ -1014,6 +1021,8 @@ sub push_single
 		$fileop_debug and push @remote_opts,'--fileop_debug';
 		$debug and push @remote_opts,'--debug';
 		push @remote_opts,$delete ? '--delete' : '--nodelete';
+		$set_pdist_status and push @remote_opts,'--set-pdist-status';
+
 		$post_command and push @remote_opts,'--post-command='.quotemeta($post_command);
 
 		$parallel && $parallel>1 and push @remote_opts,'--msg-prefix',$client;
@@ -1186,6 +1195,7 @@ usage: $0 cmd [options]
 	--fileop_debug          # log all file operations
 	--[no]delete		# do or do not clean up additional files on client.
 				# default is delete unless --files is used
+	--set-pdist-status	# force creation of /.pdist_status on target
 
 	--verbose		# be more verbose
 	--fileop_noop		# DEPRECATED: now --noop
@@ -1222,6 +1232,7 @@ use constant OPTIONS => (
 
 	'fileop_debug'   => \$fileop_debug,
 	'delete!'        => \$delete,
+	'set-pdist-status' => \$set_pdist_status,
 
 	'verbose'	 => \$verbose,
 	'debug'		 => \$debug,