diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index cbc87721..46ce6d56 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -198,3 +198,21 @@ fedora_latest:
     - cd tests
     - su testuser --login --command
         "cd `pwd`; export ANDROID_HOME=$ANDROID_HOME; fdroid=~testuser/.local/bin/fdroid ./run-tests"
+
+gradle:
+  image: alpine:3.7
+  variables:
+    LANG: C.UTF-8
+  script:
+    - apk add --no-cache ca-certificates git python3
+    # if this is a merge request fork, then only check if makebuildserver changed
+    - if [ "$CI_PROJECT_NAMESPACE" != "fdroid" ]; then
+        git fetch https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver.git;
+        for f in `git diff --name-only --diff-filter=d FETCH_HEAD...HEAD`; do
+           test "$f" == "makebuildserver" && export CHANGED="yes";
+        done;
+        test -z "$CHANGED" && exit;
+      fi
+    - python3 -m ensurepip
+    - pip3 install beautifulsoup4 requests
+    - ./tests/gradle-release-checksums.py
diff --git a/tests/gradle-release-checksums.py b/tests/gradle-release-checksums.py
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..165c56da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/gradle-release-checksums.py
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+
+import os
+import re
+import requests
+import sys
+from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
+from distutils.version import LooseVersion
+
+while True:
+    r = requests.get('https://gradle.org/release-checksums/')
+    if r.status_code == 200:
+        break
+
+soup = BeautifulSoup(r.text, 'html.parser')
+
+version_pat = re.compile(r'[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)+')
+
+versions = dict()
+for a in soup.find_all('a'):
+    if a.parent.name != 'p':
+        continue
+    name = a.get('name')
+    if not name:
+        continue
+    m = version_pat.search(name)
+    if m:
+        ul = a.parent.find_next_sibling('ul')
+        versions[m.group()] = a.parent.find_next_sibling('ul').find('li').find('code').text.strip()
+
+errors = 0
+makebuildserver = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), os.pardir, 'makebuildserver')
+with open(makebuildserver) as fp:
+    contents = fp.read()
+to_compile = re.search(r'CACHE_FILES = [^\]]+\]', contents, flags=re.DOTALL | re.MULTILINE).group()
+code = compile(to_compile, makebuildserver, 'exec')
+config = {}
+exec(code, None, config)  # nosec this is just a CI script
+makebuildserver_versions = []
+for url, checksum in config['CACHE_FILES']:
+    if 'gradle.org' in url:
+        m = version_pat.search(url.split('/')[-1])
+        if m:
+            makebuildserver_versions.append(m.group())
+            if checksum != versions[m.group()]:
+                print('ERROR: checksum mismatch:', checksum, versions[m.group()])
+                errors += 1
+
+# error if makebuildserver is missing the latest version
+for version in sorted(versions.keys()):
+    if version not in makebuildserver_versions \
+       and LooseVersion(version) > LooseVersion(sorted(makebuildserver_versions)[-1]):
+        errors += 1
+        print("    ('https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-" + version + "-bin.zip',\n"
+              "     '" + versions[version] + "'),")
+
+print('makebuildserver has gradle v' + sorted(makebuildserver_versions)[-1])
+sys.exit(errors)