diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4260e5db..3b9ee731 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 
   14 May 2007; Roy Marples <uberlord@gentoo.org>:
 
+    Add --startas back to s-s-d, #175980, #175981.
     Allow time for pidfiles to be created, #178274.
 	Use int instead of char for getopt, #178084 thanks to drizztbsd.
 
diff --git a/src/start-stop-daemon.c b/src/start-stop-daemon.c
index 5e6b8c0a..2257b339 100644
--- a/src/start-stop-daemon.c
+++ b/src/start-stop-daemon.c
@@ -481,6 +481,7 @@ int main (int argc, char **argv)
 		{ "nicelevel",    1, NULL, 'N'},
 		{ "retry",        1, NULL, 'R'},
 		{ "start",        0, NULL, 'S'},
+		{ "startas",      1, NULL, 'a'},
 		{ "background",   0, NULL, 'b'},
 		{ "chuid",        1, NULL, 'c'},
 		{ "chdir",        1, NULL, 'd'},
@@ -665,6 +666,7 @@ int main (int argc, char **argv)
 				verbose = true;
 				break;
 
+			case 'a':
 			case 'x':  /* --exec <executable> */
 				exec = optarg;
 				break;