diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5f0433004f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+FROM python:2-alpine
+
+RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual .nacl_deps build-base libffi-dev zlib-dev openssl-dev libjpeg-turbo-dev linux-headers
+
+COPY synapse /usr/local/src/synapse
+COPY setup.py setup.cfg README.rst synctl /usr/local/src/
+
+RUN cd /usr/local/src \
+ && pip install --upgrade --process-dependency-links . \
+ && rm -rf setup.py setup.cfg synapse
+
+COPY contrib/docker /
+
+VOLUME ["/data"]
+
+ENTRYPOINT ["/start.py"]
diff --git a/contrib/docker/start.py b/contrib/docker/start.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..4f63ea1ad5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/contrib/docker/start.py
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+#!/usr/local/bin/python
+
+import jinja2
+import os
+import sys
+import socket
+
+convert = lambda src, dst: open(dst, "w").write(jinja2.Template(open(src).read()).render(**os.environ))
+mode = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) > 1 else None
+
+if "SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME" not in os.environ:
+    print("Environment variable SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME is mandatory, exiting.")
+    sys.exit(2)
+
+params = ["--server-name", os.environ.get("SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME"),
+          "--report-stats", os.environ.get("SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS", "no"),
+          "--config-path", os.environ.get("SYNAPSE_CONFIG_PATH", "/compiled/homeserver.yaml")]
+
+if mode == "generate":
+    params.append("--generate-config")
+
+# Parse the configuration file
+if not os.path.exists("/compiled"):
+    os.mkdir("/compiled")
+convert("/conf/homeserver.yaml", "/compiled/homeserver.yaml")
+convert("/conf/log.config", "/compiled/%s.log.config" % os.environ.get("SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME"))
+
+# TODO, replace with a call to synapse.app.homeserver.run()
+os.execv("/usr/local/bin/python", ["python", "-m", "synapse.app.homeserver"] + params)