diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 42fc43c95adefc62d63ac6f241d3d2f8af943730..0c7e6fc2d0dbdc7d7e9eaef3daf6437f7c374e87 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ version 0.9.6 -- unreleased
     handler changes
 	rdiff: 
 	 . Fixed ignore_version default value missing
+	 . Add patch from Matthew Palmer to rdiff handler to incorporate sshoptions 
+	   into options via remote-schema not already specified (Closes: #424639)
 	wget:
 	 . New handler from rhatto designed to incrementally pull content from
 	   a website to a local folder, based on the rsync handler
diff --git a/handlers/rdiff.in b/handlers/rdiff.in
index bb704c5fddd11f169d6825bedca8e3a86bf87f11..0f934299edd0ebc86fea6dfa286079bad4906f91 100644
--- a/handlers/rdiff.in
+++ b/handlers/rdiff.in
@@ -101,6 +101,10 @@ getconf host; desthost=$host
 getconf sshoptions
 check_consistency "destination" "$type" "$user" "$host"
 
+if [ -n "$sshoptions" ] && echo $options | grep -qv "remote-schema"; then
+	options="$options --remote-schema 'ssh -C $sshoptions %s rdiff-backup --server'"
+fi
+
 ### CHECK CONFIG ###
 
 # If vservers are configured, check that the ones listed in $vsnames do exist.