diff --git a/check_rabbitmq.py b/check_rabbitmq.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..799c0f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/check_rabbitmq.py
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+#
+# check_rabbitmq.py
+
+"""A program for remotely checking the health of RabbitMQ instance. Requires
+   the management API available."""
+
+from optparse import OptionParser
+import sys
+import urllib2
+import base64
+
+try:
+    import json
+except ImportError:
+    # simplejson can be used with Python 2.4
+    import simplejson as json
+
+PLUGIN_VERSION = "0.1"
+
+# Nagios status codes (Nagios expects one of these to be returned)
+STATE_OK = 0
+STATE_WARNING = 1
+STATE_CRITICAL = 2
+STATE_UNKNOWN = 3
+
+class RabbitAPIChecker(object):
+    """Performs checks against the RabbitMQ API and returns the results"""
+
+    def __init__(self, hostname, username, password, port=15672):
+        self.hostname = hostname
+        self.username = username
+        self.password = password
+        self.port = port
+
+    def memory_alarm(self, node):
+        """Calls the API and checks if a high memory alarm has been
+           triggerred."""
+        url = "http://%s:%s/api/nodes/%s" % (self.hostname, self.port, node)
+        result = self.fetch_from_api(url)
+
+        if 'mem_alarm' in result:
+            if result['mem_alarm']:
+                print "CRITICAL - Memory alarm triggered for %s" % node
+                exit(STATE_CRITICAL)
+            else:
+                print "OK - Memory alarm not triggered for %s" % node
+                exit(STATE_OK)
+        else:
+            print "UNKNOWN - mem_alarm not found in results from API"
+            exit(STATE_UNKNOWN)
+
+    def fetch_from_api(self, url):
+        """Calls the API and processes the JSON result."""
+        request = urllib2.Request(url)
+        base64string = base64.encodestring(
+            '%s:%s' % (self.username, self.password)).replace('\n', '')
+        request.add_header("Authorization", "Basic %s" % base64string)
+
+        try:
+            http_result = urllib2.urlopen(request)
+        except urllib2.HTTPError, exception:
+            print "UNKNOWN - %s" % exception
+            exit(STATE_UNKNOWN)
+
+        json_result = json.load(http_result)
+        http_result.close()
+        return json_result
+
+def main():
+    """Main entry point for program"""
+    usage = "%prog [options] -H|--hostname HOST ACTION"
+    parser = OptionParser(usage=usage,
+                          version="%prog "+PLUGIN_VERSION)
+    parser.add_option("-u", "--username", default="guest",
+                      help="Username with monitoring access")
+    parser.add_option("-p", "--password", default="guest",
+                      help="Password for user with monitoring access")
+    parser.add_option("-P", "--port", default=15672,
+                      help="Port to run the API checks against")
+    parser.add_option("-H", "--hostname",
+                      help="Host to check")
+    (options, args) = parser.parse_args()
+
+    # Check for required arguments
+    if len(args) < 1 or options.hostname == None:
+        parser.print_usage()
+        exit(STATE_UNKNOWN)
+
+    checker = RabbitAPIChecker(options.hostname, options.username,
+                               options.password, options.port)
+
+    if args[0] == 'mem_alarm':
+        # Check if high memory alarm has been triggered
+        if len(args) < 2:
+            sys.stderr.write("Action mem_alarm requires a NODE\n")
+            exit(STATE_UNKNOWN)
+        checker.memory_alarm(args[1])
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()