diff --git a/tools/misc/mktarball b/tools/misc/mktarball
index 7f9b61da43..2f574f9bf0 100755
--- a/tools/misc/mktarball
+++ b/tools/misc/mktarball
@@ -5,14 +5,6 @@
 # Takes 2 arguments, the path to the dist directory and the version
 set -ex
 
-function git_archive_into {
-    mkdir -p "$2"
-
-    git --git-dir="$1"/.git \
-	archive --format=tar HEAD | \
-	tar Cxf "$2" -
-}
-
 if [[ -z "$1" || -z "$2" ]] ; then
   echo "usage: $0 path-to-XEN_ROOT xen-version"
   exit 1
@@ -21,14 +13,15 @@ fi
 xen_root="$1"
 desc="$2"
 
-tdir="$xen_root/dist/tmp.src-tarball"
+tdir="$xen_root/dist"
 
-rm -rf $tdir
+rm -f $tdir/xen-$desc.tar*
 
 mkdir -p $tdir
 
-git_archive_into $xen_root $tdir/xen-$desc
+git --git-dir="$xen_root/.git" archive --format=tar HEAD --prefix=xen-$desc/ \
+    >"$tdir/xen-$desc.tar"
 
-GZIP=-9v tar cz -f $xen_root/dist/xen-$desc.tar.gz -C $tdir xen-$desc
+gzip -9k "$tdir/xen-$desc.tar"
 
 echo "Source tarball in $xen_root/dist/xen-$desc.tar.gz"