diff --git a/src/common/options.c b/src/common/options.c
--- a/src/common/options.c
+++ b/src/common/options.c
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@
 #include <string.h>
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
+#include <unistd.h>
 
 struct options_common_data
 {
@@ -37,10 +38,46 @@ struct options_common_data
 
 int options_init(int argc, char *argv[], cfg_t **mycfg, cfg_opt_t *myopts, char *myname, struct options_common **allopts)
 {
+  char *configfileprefix;
   char *configfile;
 
   size_t i;
 
+  char *optstring = "hc:";
+  char curopt;
+
+  configfileprefix = NULL;
+  while((curopt = getopt(argc, argv, optstring)) != -1)
+    switch(curopt)
+      {
+      case 'h':
+	fprintf(stderr, "libdistren common options\n\
+\n\
+\t-h\tShow this help.\n\
+\t-c <path>\tBasename for configuration files. For instance, if distrencommon.conf is located at /etc/distren/distrencommon.conf, set this option /etc/distren/distren . Default value: %s\n\
+\n", SYSCONFDIR "/distren");
+	return 2;
+	break;
+      case 'c':
+	configfileprefix = strdup(optarg);
+	if(!configfileprefix)
+	  /* return is unnecessary here */
+	  fprintf(stderr, "OOM\n");
+	break;
+      case ':':
+	fprintf(stderr, "Option -%c requires an argument\n", optopt);
+	return 1;
+      }
+  /* restore optind for other people who use getopt */
+  optind = 1;
+  
+  if(!configfileprefix)
+    configfileprefix = strdup(SYSCONFDIR "/distren");
+  if(!configfileprefix)
+    {
+    fprintf(stderr, "OOM\n");
+    return 1;
+    }
   /* For those of you who don't know, the following is an example of concatenation of constant strings by the C compiler. Now, that doesn't mean you can do run-time string concatenation ;-)
    strdup is because someday configfile will be customizable via argv[]
    */