diff --git a/system/options.nix b/system/options.nix
index ab69d803539..1689b45f414 100644
--- a/system/options.nix
+++ b/system/options.nix
@@ -1508,6 +1508,11 @@ in
         description = "Parameters to pass to the Java Virtual Machine which spawns Apache Tomcat";
       };
       
+      catalinaOpts = mkOption {
+        default = "";
+        description = "Parameters to pass to the Java Virtual Machine which spawns the Catalina servlet container";
+      };
+      
       sharedLibFrom = mkOption {
         default = "";
         description = "Location where shared libraries are stored. Leave empty to use the baseDir.";
diff --git a/upstart-jobs/tomcat.nix b/upstart-jobs/tomcat.nix
index 503d1cf3963..ad4736386d9 100644
--- a/upstart-jobs/tomcat.nix
+++ b/upstart-jobs/tomcat.nix
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ in
 
     end script
     
-    respawn ${pkgs.su}/bin/su -s ${pkgs.bash}/bin/sh ${cfg.user} -c 'CATALINA_BASE=${cfg.baseDir} JAVA_HOME=${pkgs.jdk} JAVA_OPTS="${cfg.javaOpts}" ${pkgs.tomcat6}/bin/startup.sh; sleep 1d'
+    respawn ${pkgs.su}/bin/su -s ${pkgs.bash}/bin/sh ${cfg.user} -c 'CATALINA_BASE=${cfg.baseDir} JAVA_HOME=${pkgs.jdk} JAVA_OPTS="${cfg.javaOpts}" CATALINA_OPTS="${cfg.catalinaOpts}" ${pkgs.tomcat6}/bin/startup.sh; sleep 1d'
     
     stop script
         echo "Stopping tomcat..."