diff --git a/elements/rhel/README.md b/elements/rhel/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ee817888
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+Overrides:
+* Set DIB_CLOUD_IMAGES to a URL for downloading base Red Hat Enterprise Linux cloud image.
+* Set DIB_CLOUD_RELEASE to a use a non-default name for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux cloud image.
+* Set DIB_RHSM_USER and DIB_RHSM_PASSOWRD for the RHN user to be used for a subscription registration.
+  If these are set, the image building process will register the system with RHN
+  and apply the associated Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server subscription so the
+  latest package updates can be applied. At the end of the image building
+  process, the system will be unregistered from RHN.
+* Set DIB_RHSM_POOL to a subscription pool if you want the system to not use
+  the auto attach feature of subscription-manager
diff --git a/elements/rhel/bin/install-packages b/elements/rhel/bin/install-packages
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d65b4c43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/bin/install-packages
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+# not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
+# a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
+# WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
+# License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+set -e
+
+# Update packages for the distro
+if [ "$1" = "-u" ] ; then
+  #yum -y update
+  exit 0
+fi
+
+# Packages that aren't available in the distro but requested for installation
+# can be ignored by adding them to the exclude list
+BLACKLIST=(ccache dkms)
+WHITELIST=()
+for i in "$@"
+do
+  if [[ ! ${BLACKLIST[*]} =~ $i ]]; then
+    WHITELIST+="$i "
+  else
+    echo "The package $i is not available and will not be installed"
+  fi
+done
+if [ -n "$WHITELIST" ]; then
+  rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
+  yum -y install $(map-packages $WHITELIST)
+fi
diff --git a/elements/rhel/bin/map-packages b/elements/rhel/bin/map-packages
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..e113336c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/bin/map-packages
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+#!/bin/env python
+
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+# not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
+# a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
+# WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
+# License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+import sys
+
+# Manually maintained for brevity; consider making this compiled from
+# distromatch or other rich data sources.
+# Debian name on the left, RHEL on the right.
+package_map = {
+    'grub-pc': 'grub',
+    'extlinux': 'syslinux-extlinux',
+    'open-iscsi': 'iscsi-initiator-utils',
+    'vlan': 'vconfig',
+    }
+
+for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
+    print(package_map.get(arg, arg))
+sys.exit(0)
diff --git a/elements/rhel/element-deps b/elements/rhel/element-deps
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..fcb39be0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/element-deps
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+dib-run-parts
+cache-url
+rpm-distro
diff --git a/elements/rhel/finalise.d/60-rhsm-unregister b/elements/rhel/finalise.d/60-rhsm-unregister
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..27d7884f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/finalise.d/60-rhsm-unregister
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+set -e
+
+if [ -n $DIB_RHSM_USER ] && [ -n $DIB_RHSM_PASSWORD ]; then
+    subscription-manager unregister
+fi
diff --git a/elements/rhel/pre-install.d/00-rhsm b/elements/rhel/pre-install.d/00-rhsm
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..cbfefb43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/pre-install.d/00-rhsm
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+set -e
+
+if [ -n $DIB_RHSM_USER ] && [ -n $DIB_RHSM_PASSWORD ]
+  then
+    subscription-manager register --user $DIB_RHSM_USER --password $DIB_RHSM_PASSWORD
+    # wait a second to ensure consumer certificate is finished writing to disk
+    sleep 1
+    if [ -z $DIB_RHSM_POOL ]; then
+      subscription-manager attach --auto
+    else
+      subscription-manager attach --pool $DIB_RHSM_POOL
+    fi
+    subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
+fi
diff --git a/elements/rhel/root.d/10-rhel-cloud-image b/elements/rhel/root.d/10-rhel-cloud-image
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..bfeee889
--- /dev/null
+++ b/elements/rhel/root.d/10-rhel-cloud-image
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+set -eu
+
+[ -n "$ARCH" ]
+[ -n "$TARGET_ROOT" ]
+
+if [ 'amd64' = "$ARCH" ] ; then
+  ARCH="x86_64"
+fi
+
+IMG_PATH=~/.cache/image-create
+DIB_RELEASE=${DIB_RELEASE:-latest}
+DIB_CLOUD_IMAGES=${DIB_CLOUD_IMAGES:-http://rhn.redhat.com}
+BASE_IMAGE_FILE=${BASE_IMAGE_FILE:-rhel-server-x86_64-kvm-6.4_20130130.0-4.qcow2}
+BASE_IMAGE_TAR=$DIB_RELEASE-rhel-server-$ARCH-latest.tgz
+CACHED_TAR=$IMG_PATH/$BASE_IMAGE_TAR
+
+if [ -n "$DIB_OFFLINE" -a -f "$CACHED_TAR" ] ; then
+    echo "Not checking freshness of cached $CACHED_TAR."
+else
+    echo "Fetching Base Image"
+    $TMP_HOOKS_PATH/bin/cache-url $DIB_CLOUD_IMAGES/$BASE_IMAGE_FILE $IMG_PATH/$BASE_IMAGE_FILE
+
+    if [ ! -f $CACHED_TAR -o \
+        $IMG_PATH/$BASE_IMAGE_FILE -nt $CACHED_TAR ] ; then
+        echo "Repacking base image as tarball."
+        WORKING=$(mktemp -d)
+        EACTION="rm -r $WORKING"
+        trap "$EACTION" EXIT
+        RAW_FILE=$(basename $BASE_IMAGE_FILE)
+        RAW_FILE=${RAW_FILE#.qcow2}.raw
+        qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O raw $IMG_PATH/$BASE_IMAGE_FILE $WORKING/$RAW_FILE
+        MAGIC_BIT=p1
+        # NOTE: On RHEL, partprobe of /dev/loop0 does not create /dev/loop0p2,
+        # while kpartx at least creates /dev/mapper/loop0p2.
+        LOOPDEV=$(sudo kpartx -av $WORKING/$RAW_FILE | awk "/loop[0-9]+$MAGIC_BIT/ {print \$3}")
+        export LOOPDEV=$LOOPDEV
+        echo "Loop device is set to: $LOOPDEV"
+        if ! timeout 5 sh -c "while ! [ -e /dev/mapper/$LOOPDEV ]; do sleep 1; done"; then
+            echo "Error: Could not find /dev/mapper/$LOOPDEV"
+            exit 1
+        fi
+        EACTION="sudo kpartx -d $WORKING/$RAW_FILE;$EACTION"
+        trap "$EACTION" EXIT
+        mkdir $WORKING/mnt
+        sudo mount /dev/mapper/$LOOPDEV $WORKING/mnt
+        EACTION="sudo umount -f $WORKING/mnt;$EACTION"
+        trap "$EACTION" EXIT
+        # Chroot in so that we get the correct uid/gid
+        sudo chroot $WORKING/mnt bin/tar -cz . > $WORKING/tmp.tar
+        mv $WORKING/tmp.tar $IMG_PATH/$BASE_IMAGE_TAR
+    fi
+fi
+# Extract the base image
+sudo tar -C $TARGET_ROOT -xzf $IMG_PATH/$BASE_IMAGE_TAR
+sudo rmdir $TARGET_ROOT/lost+found