diff --git a/lib/common/Makefile.am b/lib/common/Makefile.am
index 150d9cda60..e3f240f29e 100644
--- a/lib/common/Makefile.am
+++ b/lib/common/Makefile.am
@@ -1,71 +1,80 @@
 #
 # Copyright 2004-2019 the Pacemaker project contributors
 #
 # The version control history for this file may have further details.
 #
 # This source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2
 # or later (GPLv2+) WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.
 #
 include $(top_srcdir)/Makefile.common
 
 AM_CPPFLAGS		+= -I$(top_builddir)/lib/gnu -I$(top_srcdir)/lib/gnu -DPCMK_SCHEMAS_EMERGENCY_XSLT=0
 
+MOSTLYCLEANFILES	= md5.c
+
 ## libraries
 lib_LTLIBRARIES	= libcrmcommon.la
 
 # Disable -Wcast-qual if used, because we do some hacky casting,
 # and because libxml2 has some signatures that should be const but aren't
 # for backward compatibility reasons.
 
 # s390 needs -fPIC 
 # s390-suse-linux/bin/ld: .libs/ipc.o: relocation R_390_PC32DBL against `__stack_chk_fail@@GLIBC_2.4' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
 
 CFLAGS		= $(CFLAGS_COPY:-Wcast-qual=) -fPIC
 
 noinst_HEADERS		= crmcommon_private.h
 
 libcrmcommon_la_LDFLAGS	= -version-info 36:0:2
 
 libcrmcommon_la_CFLAGS	= $(CFLAGS_HARDENED_LIB)
 libcrmcommon_la_LDFLAGS	+= $(LDFLAGS_HARDENED_LIB)
 
 libcrmcommon_la_LIBADD	= @LIBADD_DL@
 
 # Use += rather than backlashed continuation lines for parsing by bumplibs.sh
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	=
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= acl.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= agents.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= alerts.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= attrd_client.c
 if BUILD_CIBSECRETS
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= cib_secrets.c
 endif
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= cmdline.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= compat.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= digest.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= io.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= ipc.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= iso8601.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= logging.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= mainloop.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= nvpair.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= operations.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= output.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= output_html.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= output_none.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= output_text.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= output_xml.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= pid.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= procfs.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= remote.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= results.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= schemas.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= strings.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= utils.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= watchdog.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= xml.c
 libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= xpath.c
-libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	+= ../gnu/md5.c
+
+# It's possible to build the library adding ../gnu/md5.c directly to SOURCES,
+# but distclean chokes on that because it tries to include the source's .Plo
+# file, which may have already been cleaned.
+nodist_libcrmcommon_la_SOURCES	= md5.c
+
+md5.c: ../gnu/md5.c
+	cp "$<" "$@"
 
 clean-generic:
 	rm -f *.log *.debug *.xml *~