diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 00757c4b15165d861fe42f4fba5770a143669caa..704bef4a28899eca4d93996cb6238710bfefb451 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -80,8 +80,7 @@ CLI Changes
   * New CLI commands "dialplan set extenpatternmatching true/false"
   * New CLI command: "core set chanvar" to set a channel variable from the CLI.
   * Added an easy way to execute Asterisk CLI commands at startup.  Any commands
-    listed in the startup_commands file in the Asterisk configuration directory
-    will get executed.
+    listed in the startup_commands section of cli.conf will get executed.
 
 SIP changes
 -----------
diff --git a/configs/cli.conf.sample b/configs/cli.conf.sample
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..112ae1c90e404eb90783f69da924afe1fd27b62c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/configs/cli.conf.sample
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+;
+; Asterisk CLI configuration
+;
+
+[startup_commands]
+;
+; Any commands listed in this section will get automatically executed
+; when Asterisk starts.
+;
+;sip set debug on = yes
+;core set verbose 3 = yes
+;core set debug 1 = yes
diff --git a/main/asterisk.c b/main/asterisk.c
index 3b3c2cb2ab0a6f29111da7e2253a13d25330e07e..54a88a9f53600872027030e56c105bae6a6519df 100644
--- a/main/asterisk.c
+++ b/main/asterisk.c
@@ -2683,36 +2683,23 @@ static void canary_exit(void)
 
 static void run_startup_commands(void)
 {
-	char filename[PATH_MAX];
-	char buf[256];
-	FILE *f;
 	int fd;
-	
-	fd = open("/dev/null", O_RDWR);
-	if (fd < 0)
-		return;
-
-	snprintf(filename, sizeof(filename), "%s/startup_commands", ast_config_AST_CONFIG_DIR);
+	struct ast_config *cfg;
+	struct ast_flags cfg_flags = { 0 };
+	struct ast_variable *v;
 
-	if (!(f = fopen(filename, "r"))) {
-		close(fd);
+	if (!(cfg = ast_config_load("cli.conf", cfg_flags)))
 		return;
-	}
 
-	while (fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), f)) {
-		size_t res = strlen(buf);
-
-		if (!res)
-			continue;
-
-		if (buf[res - 1] == '\n')
-			buf[res - 1] = '\0';
+	fd = open("/dev/null", O_RDWR);
+	if (fd < 0)
+		return;
 
-		ast_cli_command(fd, buf);
-	}
+	for (v = ast_variable_browse(cfg, "startup_commands"); v; v = v->next)
+		ast_cli_command(fd, v->name);
 
-	fclose(f);
 	close(fd);
+	ast_config_destroy(cfg);
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char *argv[])