diff --git a/bus/main.c b/bus/main.c
index 612b4a6c..0331dafa 100644
--- a/bus/main.c
+++ b/bus/main.c
@@ -42,6 +42,10 @@
 #include "apparmor.h"
 #include "audit.h"
 
+#ifdef DBUS_UNIX
+#include <dbus/dbus-sysdeps-unix.h>
+#endif
+
 static BusContext *context;
 
 #ifdef DBUS_UNIX
@@ -378,6 +382,27 @@ main (int argc, char **argv)
   dbus_bool_t print_address;
   dbus_bool_t print_pid;
   BusContextFlags flags;
+#ifdef DBUS_UNIX
+  const char *error_str;
+
+  /* Redirect stdin from /dev/null since we will never need it, and
+   * redirect stdout and stderr to /dev/null if not already open.
+   *
+   * We should do this as the very first thing, to ensure that when we
+   * create other file descriptors (for example for epoll, inotify or
+   * a socket), they never get assigned as fd 0, 1 or 2. If they were,
+   * which could happen if our caller had (incorrectly) closed those
+   * standard fds, they'd get closed when we daemonize - for example,
+   * closing our listening socket would stop us listening, and closing
+   * a Linux epoll socket would cause the main loop to fail. */
+  if (!_dbus_ensure_standard_fds (DBUS_FORCE_STDIN_NULL, &error_str))
+    {
+      fprintf (stderr,
+               "dbus-daemon: fatal error setting up standard fds: %s: %s\n",
+               error_str, _dbus_strerror (errno));
+      return 1;
+    }
+#endif
 
   if (!_dbus_string_init (&config_file))
     return 1;
diff --git a/tools/dbus-launch.c b/tools/dbus-launch.c
index 800c1123..763c7b8e 100644
--- a/tools/dbus-launch.c
+++ b/tools/dbus-launch.c
@@ -843,10 +843,25 @@ main (int argc, char **argv)
   char *config_file;
   dbus_bool_t user_bus_supported = FALSE;
   DBusString user_bus;
-  
+  const char *error_str;
+
   exit_with_session = FALSE;
   config_file = NULL;
-  
+
+  /* Ensure that the first three fds are open, to ensure that when we
+   * create other file descriptors (for example for epoll, inotify or
+   * a socket), they never get assigned as fd 0, 1 or 2. If they were,
+   * which could happen if our caller had (incorrectly) closed those
+   * standard fds, then we'd start dbus-daemon with those fds closed,
+   * which is unexpected and could cause it to misbehave. */
+  if (!_dbus_ensure_standard_fds (0, &error_str))
+    {
+      fprintf (stderr,
+               "dbus-launch: fatal error setting up standard fds: %s: %s\n",
+               error_str, _dbus_strerror (errno));
+      return 1;
+    }
+
   prev_arg = NULL;
   i = 1;
   while (i < argc)