diff --git a/test/test_sanity.py b/test/test_sanity.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..93623c9d1f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test_sanity.py
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+## $Id$
+
+import urllib, random
+from boinc import *
+
+# test makes sure that testing framework is sane
+
+def read_url(url):
+    '''return 1 line from url'''
+    try:
+        return urllib.URLopener().open(url).readline().strip()
+    except IOError, e:
+        error("couldn't access HTML_URL: %s %s" % (HTML_URL, e))
+        return ''
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    test_msg("framework sanity");
+
+    verbose_echo(1, "Checking executables")
+    check_core_client_executable()
+    check_app_executable("upper_case")
+    check_app_executable("concat")
+    check_app_executable("1sec")
+
+    verbose_echo(1, "Checking directories")
+    for d in ['KEY_DIR', 'PROJECTS_DIR',
+              'CGI_DIR', 'HTML_DIR', 'HOSTS_DIR']:
+        dir = globals()[d]
+        if not os.path.isdir(dir):
+            error("%s doesn't exist: %s" % (d, dir))
+
+    magic = "Foo %x Bar" % random.randint(0,2**16)
+
+    html_path = os.path.join(HTML_DIR, 'test_sanity.txt')
+    html_url  = os.path.join(HTML_URL, 'test_sanity.txt')
+    cgi_path  = os.path.join(CGI_DIR,  'test_sanity_cgi')
+    cgi_url   = os.path.join(CGI_URL,  'test_sanity_cgi')
+
+    verbose_echo(1, "Checking webserver setup: non-cgi")
+    print >>open(html_path,'w'), magic
+    if read_url(html_url) != magic:
+        error("couldn't access a file I just wrote: "+html_path+"\n  using url: "+html_url)
+
+    os.unlink(html_path)
+
+    verbose_echo(1, "Checking webserver setup: cgi")
+    print >>open(cgi_path,'w'), '''#!/bin/sh
+echo "Content-Type: text/plain"
+echo ""
+echo "%s"
+''' % magic
+    os.chmod(cgi_path, 0755)
+
+    if read_url(cgi_url) != magic:
+        error("couldn't access a cgi file I just wrote: "+cgi_path+"\n  using url: "+cgi_url)
+
+    os.unlink(cgi_path)