diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 4ecb204..d0defb6 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
-*/data
\ No newline at end of file
+*/data/*
+!*/data/placeholder
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/modpol_core/data/placeholder b/modpol_core/data/placeholder
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/modpol_core/storage/storage-local.lua b/modpol_core/storage/storage-local.lua
index 522094f..3be42fd 100644
--- a/modpol_core/storage/storage-local.lua
+++ b/modpol_core/storage/storage-local.lua
@@ -11,8 +11,6 @@ modpol.file_ledger = modpol.datadir .. "/ledger.dat"
 modpol.file_orgs   = modpol.datadir .. "/orgs.dat"
 modpol.file_old_ledgers   = modpol.datadir .. "/old_ledgers.dat"
 
-os.execute ("mkdir -p " .. modpol.datadir)
-
 modpol.ocutil.setlogdir  (modpol.datadir)
 modpol.ocutil.setlogname ("modpol.log")