diff --git a/doc/man/man1/srun.1 b/doc/man/man1/srun.1
index f33d865a64c09442fe83452652cfb9c9dc3202b5..2989976d57799bbfd7d795031d118b396fed18b0 100644
--- a/doc/man/man1/srun.1
+++ b/doc/man/man1/srun.1
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 \." $Id$
 .\"
-.TH SRUN "1" "November 2002" "srun 0.1" "slurm components"
+.TH SRUN "1" "December 2002" "srun 0.1" "slurm components"
 .SH "NAME"
 srun \- run parallel jobs
 .SH SYNOPSIS
@@ -97,12 +97,12 @@ Specify an alternate distribution method for remote processes.
 .TP
 .B block
 The block method of distribution will allocate processes in-order to
-the cpus on a node. This is the default behavior.
+the cpus on a node. 
 .TP
 .B cyclic
 The cyclic method distributes processes in a round-robin fashion across
 the allocated nodes. That is, process 1 will be allocated to the first
-node, process 2 to the second, and so on.
+node, process 2 to the second, and so on. This is the default behavior.
 .RE
 .TP
 \fB\-J\fR, \fB\-\-job\-name\fR=\fIjobname\fR
@@ -371,6 +371,9 @@ SLURM_NNODES
 SLURM_NPROCS
 \fB\-n, \-\-nprocs\fR=\fIn\fR
 .TP
+SLURM_OVERCOMMIT
+\fB\-o, \-\-overcommit\fR
+.TP
 SLURM_PARTITION
 \fB\-p, --partition\fR=\fIpartition\fR
 .TP
diff --git a/src/srun/opt.c b/src/srun/opt.c
index 95d71b6bd33dff4b16a18663d0196fb18239ff66..6411a1e4a2ad6c6e4609713d0c69062f99f9fa12 100644
--- a/src/srun/opt.c
+++ b/src/srun/opt.c
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@
 #define OPT_TIME        0x17
 #define OPT_THREADS     0x18
 #define OPT_WAIT	0x19
+#define OPT_OVERCOMMIT	0x1a
 
 /* constraint type options */
 #define OPT_MINCPUS     0x50
@@ -262,6 +263,7 @@ env_vars_t env_vars[] = {
 	{"SLURM_NPROCS", OPT_INT, &opt.nprocs, &opt.nprocs_set},
 	{"SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK", OPT_INT, &opt.cpus_per_task, &opt.cpus_set},
 	{"SLURM_NNODES", OPT_INT, &opt.nodes, &opt.nodes_set},
+	{"SLURM_OVERCOMMIT", OPT_OVERCOMMIT, NULL, NULL},
 	{"SLURM_PARTITION", OPT_STRING, &opt.partition, NULL},
 	{"SLURM_STDINMODE", OPT_INPUT, &opt.input, NULL},
 	{"SLURM_STDOUTMODE", OPT_OUTPUT, &opt.output, NULL},
@@ -662,6 +664,10 @@ static void _opt_env()
 				}
 				break;
 
+			case OPT_OVERCOMMIT:
+				opt.overcommit = true;
+				break;
+
 			default:
 				/* do nothing */
 				break;