diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 74646ee5..2fad16f1 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ addons:
 
 env:
   global:
-    - secure: cDfB188ECmloGfScZQezqwiFef7l+gXgn2RiTOxINriy9wYS6RmZxuZBHGuR36u7QV3QEJtMdihyQ+XBN2eQPf5jULQXV15t7gArXEVPzzF8i+f8MTgVHugU3TqmPLQkY94wBBbpzvRD9xCAC/uNiQcLLwuD2SjPfTXkqgqqtd0=
     - PGVERSION="9.3"
     - JANSSON_VERSION="2.9"
     - CK_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT=20
@@ -36,20 +35,3 @@ script:
   - ienv
   - ils
   - ./scripts/travis_script.sh
-
-after_success:
-  - make dist
-  - export DIST_FILE=$(ls baton-*.tar.gz)
-  - export SHA256_FILE=$DIST_FILE.sha256
-  - shasum -a 256 $DIST_FILE > $SHA256_FILE
-
-deploy:
-  provider: releases
-  api-key: $GH_OAUTH
-  file:
-    - $DIST_FILE
-    - $SHA256_FILE
-  skip_cleanup: true
-  on:
-    tags: true
-    all_branches: true
diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index ec52ef6e..bfb10084 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 
 ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS= -I m4
 
+AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS = --with-irods
+
 if HAVE_SPHINX
 MAYBE_DOC = doc
 endif
@@ -16,6 +18,12 @@ pkgconfig_DATA = baton.pc
 
 etcdir = $(sysconfdir)
 
+github-release:
+	$(top_builddir)/scripts/github_release.sh \
+-a $(GITHUB_API_TOKEN) -b "Release $(PACKAGE_VERSION)" \
+-c master -d -n $(PACKAGE_VERSION) -r $(GITHUB_REPO) \
+-t $(PACKAGE_VERSION) -u $(GITHUB_USER) baton-$(PACKAGE_VERSION).tar.gz
+
 if COVERAGE_ENABLED
 .PHONY: coverage coverage-report clean-coverage-report check-coverage
 
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index fafc87f0..2f9aae13 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -46,6 +46,33 @@ AS_IF(
 AM_CONDITIONAL(HAVE_SPHINX, [test "x${SPHINXBUILD}" != "xno"])
 dnl End Sphinx
 
+dnl Begin GitHub release upload
+AC_ARG_VAR([GITHUB_API_TOKEN], [GitHub API token file])
+AC_ARG_VAR([GITHUB_USER], [GitHub release user name (default: $USER)])
+AC_ARG_VAR([GITHUB_REPO], [GitHub release repository (default: baton)])
+
+if test -z "$GITHUB_USER"; then
+   GITHUB_USER=${USER}
+fi
+
+if test -z "$GITHUB_REPO"; then
+   GITHUB_REPO=baton
+fi
+
+AC_ARG_ENABLE([github-release],
+  [AS_HELP_STRING([--enable-github-release],
+    [Enable GitHub release (default is no)])],
+  [release_enabled=${enableval}], [release_enabled=no])
+
+AS_IF(
+  [test "x${release_enabled}" = "xyes"],
+    AS_IF([test "x${GITHUB_API_TOKEN}" = "x"],
+            [AC_MSG_ERROR(No GitHub API token file set. GitHub releases will not be made)],
+          [AC_MSG_NOTICE([GitHub release enabled for repo $GITHUB_REPO])
+           AC_MSG_NOTICE([GitHub release user $GITHUB_USER])
+           AC_MSG_NOTICE([GitHub release API token $GITHUB_API_TOKEN])]))
+dnl End GitHub
+
 dnl Begin Lcov code coverage analysis
 
 dnl Be aware on OS X that gcc may not really be gcc, but a symlink to
diff --git a/scripts/github_release.sh b/scripts/github_release.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..ba30b5e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/github_release.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,232 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+# Copyright (C) 2017 Genome Research Limited. All Rights Reserved.
+#
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the Perl Artistic License or the GNU General
+# Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either
+# version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
+
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+# Author: Keith James
+
+# Needs error handling to report better messages when HTTP responses
+# indicate a failure on the server
+
+set -e -o pipefail
+
+# trap cleanup EXIT INT TERM
+
+# cleanup() {
+#     rm -r ${TMP}
+# }
+
+usage() {
+    cat 1>&2 << EOF
+
+This script creates a release on GitHub, creates a sha256 checksum of
+each release artifact and uploads the artifacts and checksum files to
+the release.
+
+A GitHub API token is required to be stored locally in a file
+accessible to the script. The token is sent to GitHub using SSL.
+
+Version: $VERSION
+Author:  Keith James <kdj@sanger.ac.uk>
+
+Usage: $0 -a <GitHub API token file> \\
+  -b "<release description body>" \\
+  -c <target commitish> [-d] -n <release name> [-p] \\
+  -r <GitHub repository name> -t <release tag name> \\
+  -u <GitHub user name> [-v] <release artifact files>
+
+Options:
+ -b Release description body. Required.
+ -c Target commitish e.g. 'master'. Required.
+ -d Draft release flag
+ -n Release name. Required.
+ -p Pre-release flag
+ -r Github repository name. Required.
+ -t Tag name e.g. '1.0.0'. Required.
+ -u GitHub user name. Required.
+ -v Print verbose messages
+EOF
+}
+
+# Read the API token from a file
+read_api_token() {
+    while read token || [[ -n $token ]] ; do
+        TOKEN=${TOKEN:-$token}
+    done < $GITHUB_API_TOKEN
+}
+
+# URL encode an input
+urlencode() {
+    echo $(python -c "import urllib ; print(urllib.quote(\"$1\"))")
+}
+
+# Create the release and extract the upload URL from the response
+create_github_release() {
+    pushd ${TMP}
+
+    cat > release.json <<EOF
+{"tag_name":         "$TAG_NAME",
+ "target_commitish": "$TARGET_COMMITISH",
+ "name":             "$RELEASE_NAME",
+ "body":             "$RELEASE_BODY",
+ "draft":            $DRAFT,
+ "prerelease":       $PRERELEASE}
+EOF
+
+    $CURL -u $TOKEN:x-oauth-basic -X POST \
+          -sSL https://api.github.com/repos/$USER_NAME/$REPOSITORY_NAME/releases \
+          -d @release.json > response.json
+
+    GITHUB_UPLOAD_URL=$($PYTHON -c 'import json ; print(json.load(open("response.json"))["upload_url"])' | sed -e 's/{?name,label}//')
+
+    popd
+}
+
+# Checksum and upload the artifacts to the upload URL obtained from
+# the release response
+upload_release_artifacts() {
+    for artifact in "${RELEASE_ARTIFACTS[@]}"; do
+        if [ ! -e "$artifact" ] ; then
+            echo "Release artifact $artifact file does not exist"
+            exit 5
+        fi
+
+        shasum -a 256 "$artifact" > "$artifact.sha256"
+
+        encoded=$(urlencode "$artifact")
+
+        $CURL -u $TOKEN:x-oauth-basic -X POST \
+              -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" \
+              -sSL $GITHUB_UPLOAD_URL?name="$encoded" \
+              --data-binary @"$artifact"
+
+        $CURL -u $TOKEN:x-oauth-basic -X POST \
+              -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" \
+              -sSL $GITHUB_UPLOAD_URL?name="$encoded.sha256" \
+              --data-binary @"$artifact.sha256"
+    done
+}
+
+CURL=/usr/bin/curl
+PYTHON=python
+
+TMPDIR=$PWD/
+TMP=$(mktemp -d ${TMPDIR:-/tmp/}$(basename -- "$0").XXXXXXXXXX)
+
+GITHUB_API_URL=https://api.github.com
+GITHUB_API_TOKEN=
+GITHUB_UPLOAD_URL=
+
+RELEASE_BODY=
+TARGET_COMMITISH=
+DRAFT=false
+RELEASE_NAME=
+PRERELEASE=false
+REPOSITORY_NAME=
+TAG_NAME=
+USER_NAME=
+
+while getopts "a:b:c:dn:pr:t:u:v" option; do
+    case "$option" in
+        a)
+            GITHUB_API_TOKEN="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        b)
+            RELEASE_BODY="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        c)
+            TARGET_COMMITISH="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        d)
+            DRAFT="true"
+            ;;
+        n)
+            RELEASE_NAME="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        p)
+            PRERELEASE="true"
+            ;;
+        r)
+            REPOSITORY_NAME="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        t)
+            TAG_NAME="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        u)
+            USER_NAME="${OPTARG}"
+            ;;
+        v)
+            set -x
+            ;;
+        *)
+            usage
+            echo "Invalid argument!"
+            exit 4
+            ;;
+    esac
+done
+
+shift "$((OPTIND-1))"
+
+RELEASE_ARTIFACTS=("$@")
+
+if [ -z "$GITHUB_API_TOKEN" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -a <API token file> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$RELEASE_BODY" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -b <release body> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$TARGET_COMMITISH" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -c <target commitish> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$RELEASE_NAME" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -n <release name> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$REPOSITORY_NAME" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -r <repository name> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$TAG_NAME" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -t <tag name> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$USER_NAME" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  A -u <user name> argument is required"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+if [ -z "$RELEASE_ARTIFACTS" ] ; then
+    usage
+    echo -e "\nERROR:\n  No release artifacts were supplied"
+    exit 4
+fi
+
+read_api_token
+create_github_release
+upload_release_artifacts