diff --git a/ctdb/include/ctdb_private.h b/ctdb/include/ctdb_private.h
index e834f9631fe..3298106d629 100644
--- a/ctdb/include/ctdb_private.h
+++ b/ctdb/include/ctdb_private.h
@@ -88,6 +88,7 @@ struct ctdb_tunable {
 	uint32_t database_hash_size;
 	uint32_t rerecovery_timeout;
 	uint32_t enable_bans;
+	uint32_t deterministic_public_ips;
 };
 
 /*
diff --git a/ctdb/server/ctdb_takeover.c b/ctdb/server/ctdb_takeover.c
index 9986714a17b..ec3455e4c04 100644
--- a/ctdb/server/ctdb_takeover.c
+++ b/ctdb/server/ctdb_takeover.c
@@ -675,6 +675,17 @@ int ctdb_takeover_run(struct ctdb_context *ctdb, struct ctdb_node_map *nodemap)
 	*/
 	all_ips = create_merged_ip_list(ctdb, tmp_ctx);
 
+	/* If we want deterministic ip allocations, i.e. that the ip addresses
+	   will always be allocated the same way for a specific set of
+	   available/unavailable nodes.
+	*/
+	if (1 == ctdb->tunable.deterministic_public_ips) {		
+		DEBUG(0,("Deterministic IPs enabled. Resetting all ip allocations\n"));
+		for (i=0,tmp_ip=all_ips;tmp_ip;tmp_ip=tmp_ip->next,i++) {
+			tmp_ip->pnn = i%nodemap->num;
+		}
+	}
+
 
 	/* mark all public addresses with a masked node as being served by
 	   node -1
@@ -759,6 +770,13 @@ try_again:
 			continue;
 		}
 
+		/* If we want deterministic IPs then dont try to reallocate 
+		   them to spread out the load.
+		*/
+		if (1 == ctdb->tunable.deterministic_public_ips) {
+			continue;
+		}
+
 		/* if the spread between the smallest and largest coverage by
 		   a node is >=2 we steal one of the ips from the node with
 		   most coverage to even things out a bit.
diff --git a/ctdb/server/ctdb_tunables.c b/ctdb/server/ctdb_tunables.c
index 7c5aac98007..da1f6e6ba77 100644
--- a/ctdb/server/ctdb_tunables.c
+++ b/ctdb/server/ctdb_tunables.c
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ static const struct {
 	{ "DatabaseHashSize", 10000,  offsetof(struct ctdb_tunable, database_hash_size) },
 	{ "RerecoveryTimeout",   10,  offsetof(struct ctdb_tunable, rerecovery_timeout) },
 	{ "EnableBans",           1,  offsetof(struct ctdb_tunable, enable_bans) },
+	{ "DeterministicIPs",     0,  offsetof(struct ctdb_tunable, deterministic_public_ips) },
 };
 
 /*