diff --git a/contrib/svn_update/main.php b/contrib/svn_update/main.php
index 027d9627..d4bb7f52 100644
--- a/contrib/svn_update/main.php
+++ b/contrib/svn_update/main.php
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@ class SVNUpdate extends Extension {
 				if($event->get_arg(0) == "update") {
 					$this->theme->display_update_log($event->page, $this->run_update());
 				}
+				if($event->get_arg(0) == "dump") {
+					$this->theme->display_update_log($event->page, $this->run_dump());
+				}
 				//if($event->get_arg(0) == "switch") {
 				//	$this->theme->display_update_log($event->page, $this->run_update());
 				//}
@@ -41,6 +44,21 @@ class SVNUpdate extends Extension {
 	private function run_update() {
 		return shell_exec("svn update");
 	}
+	private function run_dump() {
+		global $database_dsn;
+		$matches = array();
+
+		// FIXME: MySQL specific
+		if(preg_match("#^mysql://([^:]+):([^@]+)@([^/]+)/([^\?]+)#", $database_dsn, $matches)) {
+			$date = date("Ymd");
+			return 
+				shell_exec("mysqldump -uUSER -pPASS -hHOST DATABASE | gzip > db-$date.sql.gz") .
+				"\n\nDatabase dump should now be sitting in db-$date.sql.gz in the shimmie folder";
+		}
+		else {
+			return "Couldn't parse database connection string";
+		}
+	}
 	private function get_branches() {
 		$data = shell_exec("svn ls http://svn.shishnet.org/shimmie2/branches/");
 		$list = array();