diff --git a/hack/make/dynbinary b/hack/make/dynbinary
index 100c00eed5..2ee1ecacb3 100644
--- a/hack/make/dynbinary
+++ b/hack/make/dynbinary
@@ -12,6 +12,6 @@ export DOCKER_INITSHA1="$(sha1sum $DEST/dockerinit-$VERSION | cut -d' ' -f1)"
 # exported so that "dyntest" can easily access it later without recalculating it
 
 (
-	export LDFLAGS_STATIC="-X github.com/dotcloud/docker/utils.INITSHA1 \"$DOCKER_INITSHA1\""
+	export LDFLAGS_STATIC="-X github.com/dotcloud/docker/utils.INITSHA1 \"$DOCKER_INITSHA1\" -X github.com/dotcloud/docker/utils.INITPATH \"$DOCKER_INITPATH\""
 	source "$(dirname "$BASH_SOURCE")/binary"
 )
diff --git a/utils/utils.go b/utils/utils.go
index 473302bc97..f6e65420e8 100644
--- a/utils/utils.go
+++ b/utils/utils.go
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import (
 var (
 	IAMSTATIC bool   // whether or not Docker itself was compiled statically via ./hack/make.sh binary
 	INITSHA1  string // sha1sum of separate static dockerinit, if Docker itself was compiled dynamically via ./hack/make.sh dynbinary
+	INITPATH  string // custom location to search for a valid dockerinit binary (available for packagers as a last resort escape hatch)
 )
 
 // A common interface to access the Fatal method of
@@ -231,6 +232,7 @@ func DockerInitPath(localCopy string) string {
 	}
 	var possibleInits = []string{
 		localCopy,
+		INITPATH,
 		filepath.Join(filepath.Dir(selfPath), "dockerinit"),
 
 		// FHS 3.0 Draft: "/usr/libexec includes internal binaries that are not intended to be executed directly by users or shell scripts. Applications may use a single subdirectory under /usr/libexec."