diff --git a/docs/Makefile.am b/docs/Makefile.am
index a67371e43..228305052 100644
--- a/docs/Makefile.am
+++ b/docs/Makefile.am
@@ -29,5 +29,10 @@ endif AD_COND_doc
 icinga2.8: $(top_builddir)/icinga-app/icinga2
 	-$(HELP2MAN) --name='The Icinga 2 networking monitoring daemon.' --section=8 --no-info --output=$@ $(top_builddir)/icinga-app/icinga2
 
+# The icinga2.8 file is in EXTRA_DIST which means we need to build it when "make dist" is run.
+# Unfortunately in order to build this man page we need to build Icinga 2. Meh.
+$(top_builddir)/icinga-app/icinga2:
+	$(MAKE) -C  $(top_builddir)
+
 distclean:
 	rm -f $(icinga2doc_DATA)