diff --git a/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix b/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix
index 5ad8cdbcb18..c1ca0ca4ca7 100644
--- a/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix
+++ b/modules/system/boot/systemd.nix
@@ -608,5 +608,14 @@ in
 
     users.extraGroups.systemd-journal.gid = config.ids.gids.systemd-journal;
 
+    # FIXME: This should no longer be needed with systemd >= 204.
+    systemd.services."systemd-update-utmp-reboot.service" =
+      { description = "Update UTMP about System Reboot";
+        wantedBy = [ "sysinit.target" ];
+        unitConfig.DefaultDependencies = false;
+        serviceConfig.Type = "oneshot";
+        serviceConfig.ExecStart = "${systemd}/lib/systemd/systemd-update-utmp reboot";
+      };
+
   };
 }
diff --git a/tests/misc.nix b/tests/misc.nix
index 41bd2a8686d..47775ce2a1e 100644
--- a/tests/misc.nix
+++ b/tests/misc.nix
@@ -47,6 +47,11 @@
       subtest "blkio-cgroup", sub {
           $machine->succeed("[ -n \"\$(cat /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio/blkio.sectors)\" ]")
       };
+
+      # Test whether we have a reboot record in wtmp.
+      subtest "reboot-wtmp", sub {
+          $machine->succeed("last | grep reboot >&2");
+      };
     '';
 
 }