diff --git a/tools/mkheader b/tools/mkheader
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..70df7005f81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/mkheader
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+#! /usr/bin/env bash
+
+#  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+#  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+#  distributed with this work for additional information
+#  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+#  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+#  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+#  with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+#  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+#  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+#  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+#  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+#  limitations under the License.
+
+# mkheader FILE [FILE...]
+# Generate a standard C++ header with include guards.
+
+mkheader()
+{
+  if [ -e "$1" ] ; then
+    echo $1 exists
+    return
+  fi
+
+  echo making $1
+
+  path="$1"
+  name=`basename "$1"`
+  uuid=`uuidgen`
+
+  guard=`echo ${name}_${uuid} | tr a-z A-Z | sed 's/[-. ]/_/g' `
+
+cat > "$path" <<EOF
+/** @file
+ *
+ *  A brief file description
+ *
+ *  @section license License
+ *
+ *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ *  or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ *  distributed with this work for additional information
+ *  regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ *  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ *  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ *  with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ *  limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+#ifndef $guard
+#define $guard
+
+#endif /* $guard */
+EOF
+}
+
+while : ; do
+  if [ -z "$1" ]; then
+    exit
+  fi
+
+  mkheader "$1"
+  shift
+done