diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index 4a51e6a68dadf0d51c1951c645ee5d361f4ec1d8..e8eadde30577dd7a08ef412d24f857638ff47880 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -1449,7 +1449,11 @@ http.cookiefile::
 	of the file to read cookies from should be plain HTTP headers or
 	the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file format (see linkgit:curl[1]).
 	NOTE that the file specified with http.cookiefile is only used as
-	input. No cookies will be stored in the file.
+	input unless http.saveCookies is set.
+
+http.savecookies::
+	If set, store cookies received during requests to the file specified by
+	http.cookiefile. Has no effect if http.cookiefile is unset.
 
 http.sslVerify::
 	Whether to verify the SSL certificate when fetching or pushing
diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 2d086aedfac9a8ea384c53f3b1963149b880ed31..2fbf986231d0e23b1d2c15c8d9121f1129139097 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ static long curl_low_speed_time = -1;
 static int curl_ftp_no_epsv;
 static const char *curl_http_proxy;
 static const char *curl_cookie_file;
+static int curl_save_cookies;
 static struct credential http_auth = CREDENTIAL_INIT;
 static int http_proactive_auth;
 static const char *user_agent;
@@ -200,6 +201,10 @@ static int http_options(const char *var, const char *value, void *cb)
 
 	if (!strcmp("http.cookiefile", var))
 		return git_config_string(&curl_cookie_file, var, value);
+	if (!strcmp("http.savecookies", var)) {
+		curl_save_cookies = git_config_bool(var, value);
+		return 0;
+	}
 
 	if (!strcmp("http.postbuffer", var)) {
 		http_post_buffer = git_config_int(var, value);
@@ -513,6 +518,8 @@ struct active_request_slot *get_active_slot(void)
 	slot->callback_data = NULL;
 	slot->callback_func = NULL;
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, curl_cookie_file);
+	if (curl_save_cookies)
+		curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, curl_cookie_file);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, pragma_header);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER, curl_errorstr);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, NULL);
diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
index dd17e3a09d728a08c8038c5ce8187ea63112cdf3..397c4804010c7566a4f969822c413e46fe817e53 100644
--- a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
@@ -22,6 +22,9 @@ ErrorLog error.log
 <IfModule !mod_version.c>
 	LoadModule version_module modules/mod_version.so
 </IfModule>
+<IfModule !mod_headers.c>
+	LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
+</IfModule>
 
 <IfVersion < 2.4>
 LockFile accept.lock
@@ -87,6 +90,11 @@ Alias /auth/dumb/ www/auth/dumb/
 	SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
 	SetEnv GIT_NAMESPACE ns
 </LocationMatch>
+<LocationMatch /smart_cookies/>
+	SetEnv GIT_EXEC_PATH ${GIT_EXEC_PATH}
+	SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
+	Header set Set-Cookie name=value
+</LocationMatch>
 ScriptAliasMatch /smart_*[^/]*/(.*) ${GIT_EXEC_PATH}/git-http-backend/$1
 ScriptAlias /broken_smart/ broken-smart-http.sh/
 <Directory ${GIT_EXEC_PATH}>
diff --git a/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh b/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh
index 55a866af803452e164e2c11c421b1e63f62d2e1e..8196af19f68ac3772a81326828f7cdf83ae399a1 100755
--- a/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh
+++ b/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh
@@ -187,6 +187,22 @@ test_expect_success 'dumb clone via http-backend respects namespace' '
 	test_cmp expect actual
 '
 
+cat >cookies.txt <<EOF
+127.0.0.1	FALSE	/smart_cookies/	FALSE	0	othername	othervalue
+EOF
+cat >expect_cookies.txt <<EOF
+
+127.0.0.1	FALSE	/smart_cookies/	FALSE	0	othername	othervalue
+127.0.0.1	FALSE	/smart_cookies/repo.git/info/	FALSE	0	name	value
+EOF
+test_expect_success 'cookies stored in http.cookiefile when http.savecookies set' '
+	git config http.cookiefile cookies.txt &&
+	git config http.savecookies true &&
+	git ls-remote $HTTPD_URL/smart_cookies/repo.git master &&
+	tail -3 cookies.txt > cookies_tail.txt
+	test_cmp expect_cookies.txt cookies_tail.txt
+'
+
 test -n "$GIT_TEST_LONG" && test_set_prereq EXPENSIVE
 
 test_expect_success EXPENSIVE 'create 50,000 tags in the repo' '