diff --git a/files/apts/glance b/files/apts/glance
index 22787bc5a2..6dc878e4de 100644
--- a/files/apts/glance
+++ b/files/apts/glance
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 gcc
-libffi-dev          # testonly
+libffi-dev
 libmysqlclient-dev  # testonly
 libpq-dev           # testonly
 libssl-dev          # testonly
diff --git a/files/rpms/glance b/files/rpms/glance
index 785ce25df5..25c5d3902b 100644
--- a/files/rpms/glance
+++ b/files/rpms/glance
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 gcc
-libffi-devel        # testonly
+libffi-devel
 libxml2-devel       # testonly
 libxslt-devel       # testonly
 mysql-devel         # testonly
diff --git a/tools/fixup_stuff.sh b/tools/fixup_stuff.sh
index 47b0cd10cd..048024a325 100755
--- a/tools/fixup_stuff.sh
+++ b/tools/fixup_stuff.sh
@@ -98,6 +98,10 @@ if [[ $DISTRO =~ (rhel6) ]]; then
         sudo setenforce 0
     fi
 
+    # make sure we have the "optional" repo enabled; it provides some
+    # packages like libffi-devel for example
+    sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
+
     # If the ``dbus`` package was installed by DevStack dependencies the
     # uuid may not be generated because the service was never started (PR#598200),
     # causing Nova to stop later on complaining that ``/var/lib/dbus/machine-id``