diff --git a/bin/dmxserver b/bin/dmxserver
--- a/bin/dmxserver
+++ b/bin/dmxserver
@@ -204,10 +204,15 @@ parser.add_option("-f","--fast-updates",
                         'of the usual reduced output'))
 parser.add_option("-r","--updates-per-sec",type='float',default=20,
                   help=('dmx output frequency'))
+parser.add_option("-n", "--dummy", action="store_true",
+                  help="dummy mode, same as DMXDUMMY=1 env variable")
 (options,songfiles)=parser.parse_args()
 
 print options
 
+if options.dummy:
+    os.environ['DMXDUMMY'] = "1"
+
 port = networking.dmxServerPort()
 print "starting xmlrpc server on port %s" % port
 reactor.listenTCP(port,server.Site(XMLRPCServe(options)))