diff --git a/DAMASK_prerequisits.sh b/DAMASK_prerequisits.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..8ed094cc3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/DAMASK_prerequisits.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+OUTFILE="bla.txt"
+echo date +"%m-%d-%y" >OUTFILE
+
+# redirect STDOUT and STDERR to logfile
+# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11229385/redirect-all-output-in-a-bash-script-when-using-set-x^
+exec > $OUTFILE 2>&1
+
+# directory, file is not a symlink by definition
+# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59895/getting-the-source-directory-of-a-bash-script-from-within
+DAMASK_ROOT="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
+
+echo ==============================================================================================
+echo DAMASK settings
+echo ==============================================================================================
+echo
+echo DAMASK_ROOT: $DAMASK_ROOT
+echo
+echo Settings in CONFIG:
+cat  CONFIG
+echo
+echo ==============================================================================================
+echo Python
+echo ==============================================================================================
+
+DEFAULT_PYTHON=python2.7
+for executable in python python2 python3 python2.7; do
+  if [[ "$(which $executable)x" != "x" ]]; then
+     echo $executable version: $($executable --version 2>&1)
+  else
+     echo $executable does not exist
+  fi
+done
+echo Location of $DEFAULT_PYTHON: $(ls -la $(which $DEFAULT_PYTHON))
+echo
+for module in numpy scipy;do
+  echo ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+  echo $module
+  $DEFAULT_PYTHON -c "import $module; print('Version: {}'.format($module.__version__));print('Location: {}'.format($module.__file__))"
+done
+echo ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+echo vtk
+$DEFAULT_PYTHON -c "import vtk; print('Location: {}'.format(vtk.__file__))"