diff --git a/nixos/tests/all-tests.nix b/nixos/tests/all-tests.nix
index 63a990d3d81..0dbd3671877 100644
--- a/nixos/tests/all-tests.nix
+++ b/nixos/tests/all-tests.nix
@@ -255,6 +255,7 @@ in
   magnetico = handleTest ./magnetico.nix {};
   mailcatcher = handleTest ./mailcatcher.nix {};
   mailhog = handleTest ./mailhog.nix {};
+  man = handleTest ./man.nix {};
   mariadb-galera-mariabackup = handleTest ./mysql/mariadb-galera-mariabackup.nix {};
   mariadb-galera-rsync = handleTest ./mysql/mariadb-galera-rsync.nix {};
   matomo = handleTest ./matomo.nix {};
diff --git a/nixos/tests/man.nix b/nixos/tests/man.nix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..1ff5af4e805
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nixos/tests/man.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+
+import ./make-test-python.nix ({ pkgs, lib, ... }: let
+  manImplementations = [
+    "mandoc"
+    "man-db"
+  ];
+
+  machineNames = builtins.map machineSafe manImplementations;
+
+  makeConfig = useImpl: {
+    # Note: mandoc currently can't index symlinked section directories.
+    # So if a man section comes from one package exclusively (e. g.
+    # 1p from man-pages-posix and 2 from man-pages), it isn't searchable.
+    environment.systemPackages = [
+      pkgs.man-pages
+      pkgs.openssl
+      pkgs.libunwind
+    ];
+
+    documentation = {
+      enable = true;
+      nixos.enable = lib.mkForce true;
+      dev.enable = true;
+      man = {
+        enable = true;
+        generateCaches = true;
+      } // lib.listToAttrs (builtins.map (impl: {
+        name = impl;
+        value = {
+          enable = useImpl == impl;
+        };
+      }) manImplementations);
+    };
+  };
+
+  machineSafe = builtins.replaceStrings [ "-" ] [ "_" ];
+in {
+  name = "man";
+  meta.maintainers = [ lib.maintainers.sternenseemann ];
+
+  nodes = lib.listToAttrs (builtins.map (i: {
+    name = machineSafe i;
+    value = makeConfig i;
+  }) manImplementations);
+
+  testScript = ''
+    import re
+    start_all()
+
+    def match_man_k(page, section, haystack):
+      """
+      Check if the man page {page}({section}) occurs in
+      the output of `man -k` given as haystack. Note:
+      This is not super reliable, e. g. it can't deal
+      with man pages that are in multiple sections.
+      """
+
+      for line in haystack.split("\n"):
+        # man -k can look like this:
+        # page(3) - bla
+        # page (3) - bla
+        # pagea, pageb (3, 3P) - foo
+        # pagea, pageb, pagec(3) - bar
+        pages = line.split("(")[0]
+        sections = re.search("\\([a-zA-Z1-9, ]+\\)", line)
+        if sections is None:
+          continue
+        else:
+          sections = sections.group(0)[1:-1]
+
+        if page in pages and f'{section}' in sections:
+          return True
+
+      return False
+
+  '' + lib.concatMapStrings (machine: ''
+    with subtest("Test direct man page lookups in ${machine}"):
+      # man works
+      ${machine}.succeed("man man > /dev/null")
+      # devman works
+      ${machine}.succeed("man 3 libunwind > /dev/null")
+      # NixOS configuration man page is installed
+      ${machine}.succeed("man configuration.nix > /dev/null")
+
+    with subtest("Test generateCaches via man -k in ${machine}"):
+      expected = [
+        ("openssl", "ssl", 3),
+        ("unwind", "libunwind", 3),
+        ("user", "useradd", 8),
+        ("user", "userdel", 8),
+        ("mem", "free", 3),
+        ("mem", "free", 1),
+      ]
+
+      for (keyword, page, section) in expected:
+        matches = ${machine}.succeed(f"man -k {keyword}")
+        if not match_man_k(page, section, matches):
+          raise Exception(f"{page}({section}) missing in matches: {matches}")
+  '') machineNames;
+})
diff --git a/pkgs/tools/misc/man-db/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/misc/man-db/default.nix
index f1739cbd50d..d495c912f59 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/misc/man-db/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/misc/man-db/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ lib, stdenv, fetchurl, pkg-config, libpipeline, db, groff, libiconv, makeWrapper, buildPackages }:
+{ lib, stdenv, fetchurl, pkg-config, libpipeline, db, groff, libiconv, makeWrapper, buildPackages, nixosTests }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   pname = "man-db";
@@ -73,6 +73,10 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   doCheck = !stdenv.hostPlatform.isMusl /* iconv binary */ && !stdenv.hostPlatform.isDarwin;
 
+  passthru.tests = {
+    nixos = nixosTests.man;
+  };
+
   meta = with lib; {
     homepage = "http://man-db.nongnu.org";
     description = "An implementation of the standard Unix documentation system accessed using the man command";
diff --git a/pkgs/tools/misc/mandoc/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/misc/mandoc/default.nix
index 1771f6515bc..2d974b8af63 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/misc/mandoc/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/misc/mandoc/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ lib, stdenv, fetchurl, zlib, perl }:
+{ lib, stdenv, fetchurl, zlib, perl, nixosTests }:
 
 let
   # check if we can execute binaries for the host platform on the build platform
@@ -62,6 +62,10 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   checkInputs = [ perl ];
   preCheck = "patchShebangs --build regress/regress.pl";
 
+  passthru.tests = {
+    nixos = nixosTests.man;
+  };
+
   meta = with lib; {
     homepage = "https://mandoc.bsd.lv/";
     description = "suite of tools compiling mdoc and man";