diff --git a/docs/changelog/7.x.x.txt b/docs/changelog/7.x.x.txt
index 045807b18..62fc03a29 100644
--- a/docs/changelog/7.x.x.txt
+++ b/docs/changelog/7.x.x.txt
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
    date.
  - fix: 7.4 Editing SQL Form seems to break site ...?
  - rfe: Export & files
+ - Added master failover database config option.
  - URLs that would have been created like page.html/article.html are now
    created like page/article.html to make them look more realistic.
  - fix: Fixing bad link on the Event page to the search engine. Added a new
diff --git a/etc/WebGUI.conf.original b/etc/WebGUI.conf.original
index 18458cd93..1d2388424 100644
--- a/etc/WebGUI.conf.original
+++ b/etc/WebGUI.conf.original
@@ -146,6 +146,19 @@
 #	"pass" : "password"
 #	},
 
+# You can configure a backup master database as a failover in case
+# your primary database goes down. WebGUI will use this database until
+# the original becomes available. However, this does nothing to change
+# the settings of your database. If it was set up as a slave until the
+# master went down, then some script will have to be written to convert
+# it from a slave to a master.
+
+# "failoverdb" : {
+#        "dsn" : "DBI:mysql:www_example_com;host=failover.example.com;port=3306",
+#        "user" : "webgui",
+#        "password" : "password"
+#        },
+
 # Set this value if you wish to override all outbound emails to a specific
 # user for testing purposes.
 
diff --git a/lib/WebGUI/Session.pm b/lib/WebGUI/Session.pm
index 8d006e1db..00d76c023 100644
--- a/lib/WebGUI/Session.pm
+++ b/lib/WebGUI/Session.pm
@@ -173,6 +173,11 @@ sub db {
 	my $skipFatal = shift;
 	unless (exists $self->{_db}) {
 		my $db = WebGUI::SQL->connect($self,$self->config->get("dsn"), $self->config->get("dbuser"), $self->config->get("dbpass"));
+		if (!defined $db && defined $self->config->get("failoverdb")) {
+			$self->errorHandler->warn("Main DB down, resorting to using failover.");
+			my $failover = $self->config->get("failoverdb");
+			$db = WebGUI::SQL->connect($self,$failover->{dsn}, $failover->{user}, $failover->{password});
+		}
 		if (defined $db) {
 			$self->{_db} = $db;
 		}