diff --git a/spec/spec_helper.rb b/spec/spec_helper.rb
index 89d179896..5c280ff68 100755
--- a/spec/spec_helper.rb
+++ b/spec/spec_helper.rb
@@ -1,108 +1,120 @@
 # NOTE: a lot of the stuff in this file is duplicated in the "puppet_spec_helper" in the project
 #  puppetlabs_spec_helper.  We should probably eat our own dog food and get rid of most of this from here,
 #  and have the puppet core itself use puppetlabs_spec_helper
 
 dir = File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__))
 $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.join(dir, 'lib')
 
 # Don't want puppet getting the command line arguments for rake or autotest
 ARGV.clear
 
 require 'puppet'
 gem 'rspec', '>=2.0.0'
 require 'rspec/expectations'
 
 # So everyone else doesn't have to include this base constant.
 module PuppetSpec
   FIXTURE_DIR = File.join(dir = File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__)), "fixtures") unless defined?(FIXTURE_DIR)
 end
 
 require 'pathname'
 require 'tmpdir'
+require 'fileutils'
 
 require 'puppet_spec/verbose'
 require 'puppet_spec/files'
 require 'puppet_spec/fixtures'
 require 'puppet_spec/matchers'
 require 'puppet_spec/database'
 require 'monkey_patches/alias_should_to_must'
 require 'monkey_patches/publicize_methods'
 require 'puppet/test/test_helper'
 
 Pathname.glob("#{dir}/shared_contexts/*.rb") do |file|
   require file.relative_path_from(Pathname.new(dir))
 end
 
 Pathname.glob("#{dir}/shared_behaviours/**/*.rb") do |behaviour|
   require behaviour.relative_path_from(Pathname.new(dir))
 end
 
 RSpec.configure do |config|
   include PuppetSpec::Fixtures
 
   config.mock_with :mocha
 
+  tmpdir = Dir.mktmpdir("rspecrun")
+  oldtmpdir = Dir.tmpdir()
+  ENV['TMPDIR'] = tmpdir
+
   if Puppet::Util::Platform.windows?
     config.output_stream = $stdout
     config.error_stream = $stderr
     config.formatters.each { |f| f.instance_variable_set(:@output, $stdout) }
   end
 
   config.before :all do
     Puppet::Test::TestHelper.before_all_tests()
   end
 
   config.after :all do
     Puppet::Test::TestHelper.after_all_tests()
   end
 
   config.before :each do
     # Disabling garbage collection inside each test, and only running it at
     # the end of each block, gives us an ~ 15 percent speedup, and more on
     # some platforms *cough* windows *cough* that are a little slower.
     GC.disable
 
     # REVISIT: I think this conceals other bad tests, but I don't have time to
     # fully diagnose those right now.  When you read this, please come tell me
     # I suck for letting this float. --daniel 2011-04-21
     Signal.stubs(:trap)
 
 
     # TODO: in a more sane world, we'd move this logging redirection into our TestHelper class.
     #  Without doing so, external projects will all have to roll their own solution for
     #  redirecting logging, and for validating expected log messages.  However, because the
     #  current implementation of this involves creating an instance variable "@logs" on
     #  EVERY SINGLE TEST CLASS, and because there are over 1300 tests that are written to expect
     #  this instance variable to be available--we can't easily solve this problem right now.
     #
     # redirecting logging away from console, because otherwise the test output will be
     #  obscured by all of the log output
     @logs = []
     Puppet::Util::Log.newdestination(Puppet::Test::LogCollector.new(@logs))
 
     @log_level = Puppet::Util::Log.level
 
     Puppet::Test::TestHelper.before_each_test()
 
   end
 
   config.after :each do
     Puppet::Test::TestHelper.after_each_test()
 
     # TODO: would like to move this into puppetlabs_spec_helper, but there are namespace issues at the moment.
     PuppetSpec::Files.cleanup
 
     # TODO: this should be abstracted in the future--see comments above the '@logs' block in the
     #  "before" code above.
     #
     # clean up after the logging changes that we made before each test.
     @logs.clear
     Puppet::Util::Log.close_all
     Puppet::Util::Log.level = @log_level
 
     # This will perform a GC between tests, but only if actually required.  We
     # experimented with forcing a GC run, and that was less efficient than
     # just letting it run all the time.
     GC.enable
   end
+
+  config.after :suite do
+    # Clean up switch of TMPDIR, don't know if needed after this, so needs to reset it
+    # to old before removing it
+    ENV['TMPDIR'] = oldtmpdir
+    FileUtils.rm_rf(tmpdir) if File.exists?(tmpdir) && tmpdir.to_s.start_with?(oldtmpdir)
+  end
 end