diff --git a/os/src/server/ram_fs/README b/os/src/server/ram_fs/README
index 4a59890446..d2f441eb85 100644
--- a/os/src/server/ram_fs/README
+++ b/os/src/server/ram_fs/README
@@ -18,8 +18,9 @@ The following configuration illustates the way of how to express policy.
 !     </dir>
 !     <dir name="home">
 !       <dir name="user">
-!         <!-- just a place holder -->
-!         <rom name="timer" />
+!         <inline name=".vimrc">
+!           set hidden
+!         </inline>
 !       </dir>
 !     </dir>
 !   </content>
@@ -33,7 +34,10 @@ The '<content>' sub node of the '<config>' node provides a way to pre-populate
 the file system with directories and files. Note that '<dir>' nodes can be
 arbitrarily nested. Files can be loaded from the ROM service. By adding the
 optional 'at' attribute to a rom node, the file name can be defined
-independently from the ROM module name.
+independently from the ROM module name. In addition to creating files from
+ROM modules, files can be created from data specified directly as part of the
+configuration using '<inline>' nodes. The content of such nodes is used as
+file content as is.
 
 Session-specific access-control policy is expressed via one or more '<policy>'
 nodes. At session-creation time, each policy node is matched against the label
diff --git a/os/src/server/ram_fs/main.cc b/os/src/server/ram_fs/main.cc
index ba05f96928..f68fb9a66d 100644
--- a/os/src/server/ram_fs/main.cc
+++ b/os/src/server/ram_fs/main.cc
@@ -598,6 +598,16 @@ static void preload_content(Genode::Allocator      &alloc,
 			catch (Rm_session::Attach_failed) {
 				PWRN("Could not locally attach ROM file \"%s\"", (char *)name); }
 		}
+
+		/*
+		 * Create file from inline data provided as content of the XML node
+		 */
+		if (sub_node.has_type("inline")) {
+
+			File *file = new (&alloc) File(alloc, name);
+			file->write(sub_node.content_addr(), sub_node.content_size(), 0);
+			dir.adopt_unsynchronized(file);
+		}
 	}
 }