diff --git a/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/__init__.py b/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/__init__.py
index 29533a1062..b5ccda0406 100644
--- a/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/__init__.py
+++ b/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/__init__.py
@@ -83,10 +83,11 @@ def start():
         # Start the development server
         cherrypy.quickstart(root, '/', conf)
     else:
-        # Mount and start the WSGI app using the production CherryPy server
-        verify_certs(apiconf['ssl_crt'], apiconf['ssl_key'])
+        from . import wsgi
+        application = wsgi.get_application(root, apiopts, conf)
 
-        app = cherrypy.tree.mount(app, '/', config=conf)
+        # Mount and start the WSGI app using the production CherryPy server
+        verify_certs(apiopts['ssl_crt'], apiopts['ssl_key'])
 
         ssl_a = wsgiserver.ssl_builtin.BuiltinSSLAdapter(
                 apiopts['ssl_crt'], apiopts['ssl_key'])
diff --git a/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/wsgi.py b/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/wsgi.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1915420619
--- /dev/null
+++ b/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/wsgi.py
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+'''
+A WSGI app to start a REST interface to Salt
+
+This WSGI app can be used with any WSGI-compliant server. See the rest_cherrypy
+netapi module to see how this app is run with the CherryPy WSGI server.
+
+Apache's mod_wsgi instructions
+------------------------------
+
+Add the path to this script as a WSGIScriptAlias in the Apache configuration
+for your site. For example a virtual host configuration may look something
+like::
+
+    <VirtualHost *:80>
+        ServerName example.com
+        ServerAlias *.example.com
+
+        ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
+
+        LogLevel warn
+        ErrorLog /var/www/example.com/logs/error.log
+        CustomLog /var/www/example.com/logs/access.log combined
+
+        DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/htdocs
+
+        WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/saltapi/netapi/rest_cherrypy/app.wsgi
+    </VirtualHost>
+
+'''
+# pylint: disable=C0103
+
+import cherrypy
+
+from . import app
+
+def bootstrap_app():
+    '''
+    Grab the opts dict of the master config by trying to import Salt
+    '''
+    import salt.client
+    opts = salt.client.LocalClient().opts
+    return app.get_app(opts)
+
+def get_application(*args):
+    '''
+    Returns a WSGI application function. If you supply the WSGI app and config
+    it will use that, otherwise it will try to obtain them from a local Salt
+    installation
+    '''
+    opts_tuple = args
+
+    def wsgi_app(environ, start_response):
+        root, _, conf = opts_tuple or bootstrap_app()
+
+        cherrypy.tree.mount(root, '/', conf)
+        return cherrypy.tree(environ, start_response)
+
+    return wsgi_app
+
+application = get_application()