diff --git a/nixos/modules/services/computing/slurm/slurm.nix b/nixos/modules/services/computing/slurm/slurm.nix
index 3e513ab1571..1e1c5bc9f03 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/services/computing/slurm/slurm.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/services/computing/slurm/slurm.nix
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ let
 
   cfg = config.services.slurm;
   # configuration file can be generated by http://slurm.schedmd.com/configurator.html
-  configFile = pkgs.writeText "slurm.conf"
+  configFile = pkgs.writeTextDir "slurm.conf"
     ''
       ${optionalString (cfg.controlMachine != null) ''controlMachine=${cfg.controlMachine}''}
       ${optionalString (cfg.controlAddr != null) ''controlAddr=${cfg.controlAddr}''}
@@ -17,10 +17,25 @@ let
       ${cfg.extraConfig}
     '';
 
-  plugStackConfig = pkgs.writeText "plugstack.conf"
+  plugStackConfig = pkgs.writeTextDir "plugstack.conf"
     ''
       ${optionalString cfg.enableSrunX11 ''optional ${pkgs.slurm-spank-x11}/lib/x11.so''}
+      ${cfg.extraPlugstackConfig}
     '';
+
+
+  cgroupConfig = pkgs.writeTextDir "cgroup.conf"
+   ''
+     ${cfg.extraCgroupConfig}
+   '';
+
+  # slurm expects some additional config files to be
+  # in the same directory as slurm.conf
+  etcSlurm = pkgs.symlinkJoin {
+    name = "etc-slurm";
+    paths = [ configFile cgroupConfig plugStackConfig ];
+  };
+
 in
 
 {
@@ -46,7 +61,17 @@ in
 
       client = {
         enable = mkEnableOption "slurm client daemon";
+      };
 
+      enableStools = mkOption {
+        type = types.bool;
+        default = false;
+        description = ''
+          Wether to provide a slurm.conf file.
+          Enable this option if you do not run a slurm daemon on this host
+          (i.e. <literal>server.enable</literal> and <literal>client.enable</literal> are <literal>false</literal>)
+          but you still want to run slurm commands from this host.
+        '';
       };
 
       package = mkOption {
@@ -97,7 +122,7 @@ in
         example = "debug Nodes=linux[1-32] Default=YES MaxTime=INFINITE State=UP";
         description = ''
           Name by which the partition may be referenced. Note that now you have
-          to write patrition's parameters after the name.
+          to write the partition's parameters after the name.
         '';
       };
 
@@ -107,8 +132,10 @@ in
         description = ''
           If enabled srun will accept the option "--x11" to allow for X11 forwarding
           from within an interactive session or a batch job. This activates the
-          slurm-spank-x11 module. Note that this requires 'services.openssh.forwardX11'
-          to be enabled on the compute nodes.
+          slurm-spank-x11 module. Note that this option also enables
+          'services.openssh.forwardX11' on the client.
+
+          This option requires slurm to be compiled without native X11 support.
         '';
       };
 
@@ -130,6 +157,23 @@ in
           the end of the slurm configuration file.
         '';
       };
+
+      extraPlugstackConfig = mkOption {
+        default = "";
+        type = types.lines;
+        description = ''
+          Extra configuration that will be added to the end of <literal>plugstack.conf</literal>.
+        '';
+      };
+
+      extraCgroupConfig = mkOption {
+        default = "";
+        type = types.lines;
+        description = ''
+          Extra configuration for <literal>cgroup.conf</literal>. This file is
+          used when <literal>procTrackType=proctrack/cgroup</literal>.
+        '';
+      };
     };
 
   };
@@ -142,8 +186,6 @@ in
       wrappedSlurm = pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
         name = "wrappedSlurm";
 
-        propagatedBuildInputs = [ cfg.package configFile ];
-
         builder = pkgs.writeText "builder.sh" ''
           source $stdenv/setup
           mkdir -p $out/bin
@@ -155,17 +197,20 @@ in
           #!/bin/sh
           if [ -z "$SLURM_CONF" ]
           then
-            SLURM_CONF="${configFile}" "$EXE" "\$@"
+            SLURM_CONF="${etcSlurm}/slurm.conf" "$EXE" "\$@"
           else
             "$EXE" "\$0"
           fi
           EOT
             chmod +x "$wrappername"
           done
+
+          mkdir -p $out/share
+          ln -s ${getBin cfg.package}/share/man $out/share/man
         '';
       };
 
-  in mkIf (cfg.client.enable || cfg.server.enable) {
+  in mkIf (cfg.enableStools || cfg.client.enable || cfg.server.enable) {
 
     environment.systemPackages = [ wrappedSlurm ];
 
@@ -190,6 +235,8 @@ in
       '';
     };
 
+    services.openssh.forwardX11 = mkIf cfg.client.enable (mkDefault true);
+
     systemd.services.slurmctld = mkIf (cfg.server.enable) {
       path = with pkgs; [ wrappedSlurm munge coreutils ]
         ++ lib.optional cfg.enableSrunX11 slurm-spank-x11;
diff --git a/nixos/tests/slurm.nix b/nixos/tests/slurm.nix
index dc4f62af564..c23d85e4002 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/slurm.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/slurm.nix
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import ./make-test.nix ({ pkgs, ... }:
 let mungekey = "mungeverryweakkeybuteasytointegratoinatest";
     slurmconfig = {
-      client.enable = true;
       controlMachine = "control";
       nodeName = ''
         control
@@ -20,9 +19,12 @@ in {
         # TODO slrumd port and slurmctld port should be configurations and
         # automatically allowed by the  firewall.
         networking.firewall.enable = false;
-        services.slurm = slurmconfig;
+        services.slurm = {
+          client.enable = true;
+        } // slurmconfig;
       };
     in {
+
     control =
       { config, pkgs, ...}:
       {
@@ -31,17 +33,28 @@ in {
           server.enable = true;
         } // slurmconfig;
       };
+
+    submit =
+      { config, pkgs, ...}:
+      {
+        networking.firewall.enable = false;
+        services.slurm = {
+          enableStools = true;
+        } // slurmconfig;
+      };
+
     node1 = computeNode;
     node2 = computeNode;
     node3 = computeNode;
   };
 
+
   testScript =
   ''
   startAll;
 
   # Set up authentification across the cluster
-  foreach my $node (($control,$node1,$node2,$node3))
+  foreach my $node (($submit,$control,$node1,$node2,$node3))
   {
     $node->waitForUnit("default.target");
 
@@ -60,7 +73,7 @@ in {
   };
 
   subtest "can_start_slurmd", sub {
-    foreach my $node (($control,$node1,$node2,$node3))
+    foreach my $node (($node1,$node2,$node3))
     {
       $node->succeed("systemctl restart slurmd.service");
       $node->waitForUnit("slurmd");
@@ -72,7 +85,7 @@ in {
   subtest "run_distributed_command", sub {
     # Run `hostname` on 3 nodes of the partition (so on all the 3 nodes).
     # The output must contain the 3 different names
-    $control->succeed("srun -N 3 hostname | sort | uniq | wc -l | xargs test 3 -eq");
+    $submit->succeed("srun -N 3 hostname | sort | uniq | wc -l | xargs test 3 -eq");
   };
   '';
 })
diff --git a/pkgs/servers/computing/slurm/default.nix b/pkgs/servers/computing/slurm/default.nix
index b0460f21bfa..7a03bf75802 100644
--- a/pkgs/servers/computing/slurm/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/servers/computing/slurm/default.nix
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchurl, pkgconfig, libtool, curl, python, munge, perl, pam, openssl
+{ stdenv, fetchurl, pkgconfig, libtool, curl
+, python, munge, perl, pam, openssl
 , ncurses, mysql, gtk2, lua, hwloc, numactl
+, readline, freeipmi, libssh2, xorg
+# enable internal X11 support via libssh2
+, enableX11 ? true
 }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
@@ -13,6 +17,11 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   outputs = [ "out" "dev" ];
 
+  prePatch = stdenv.lib.optional enableX11 ''
+    substituteInPlace src/common/x11_util.c \
+        --replace '"/usr/bin/xauth"' '"${xorg.xauth}/bin/xauth"'
+  '';
+
   # nixos test fails to start slurmd with 'undefined symbol: slurm_job_preempt_mode'
   # https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/slurm-devel/QHOajQ84_Es
   # this doesn't fix tests completely at least makes slurmd to launch
@@ -20,14 +29,20 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgconfig libtool ];
   buildInputs = [
-    curl python munge perl pam openssl mysql.connector-c ncurses gtk2 lua hwloc numactl
-  ];
+    curl python munge perl pam openssl
+      mysql.connector-c ncurses gtk2
+      lua hwloc numactl readline freeipmi
+  ] ++ stdenv.lib.optionals enableX11 [ libssh2 xorg.xauth ];
 
-  configureFlags =
+  configureFlags = with stdenv.lib;
     [ "--with-munge=${munge}"
       "--with-ssl=${openssl.dev}"
+      "--with-hwloc=${hwloc.dev}"
+      "--with-freeipmi=${freeipmi}"
       "--sysconfdir=/etc/slurm"
-    ] ++ stdenv.lib.optional (gtk2 == null)  "--disable-gtktest";
+    ] ++ (optional (gtk2 == null)  "--disable-gtktest")
+      ++ (optional enableX11 "--with-libssh2=${libssh2.dev}");
+
 
   preConfigure = ''
     patchShebangs ./doc/html/shtml2html.py
@@ -45,6 +60,6 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     description = "Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management";
     platforms = platforms.linux;
     license = licenses.gpl2;
-    maintainers = [ maintainers.jagajaga ];
+    maintainers = with maintainers; [ jagajaga markuskowa ];
   };
 }