diff --git a/setup_venv.sh b/setup_venv.sh
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+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+# Copyright 2017-present Open Networking Foundation
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+# sets up a python virtualenv for running voltha system tests
+
+WORKSPACE=${WORKSPACE:-.}
+VENVDIR="${WORKSPACE}/venv-voltha-tests"
+
+# create venv if it's not yet there
+if [ ! -x "${VENVDIR}/bin/activate" ]; then
+  echo "Setting up dev/test virtualenv in ${VENVDIR} for VOLTHA-System-Tests"
+  virtualenv -q "${VENVDIR}" --no-site-packages
+  echo "Virtualenv created."
+fi
+
+echo "Installing python requirements in virtualenv with pip"
+source "${VENVDIR}/bin/activate"
+pip3 install --upgrade pip
+pip3 install cryptography==2.4.2 robotframework robotframework-requests robotframework-sshlibrary  \
+    pexpect robotframework-httplibrary robotframework-kafkalibrary pygments pyyaml \
+    robotframework-databaselibrary psycopg2==2.7.7 paramiko==2.4.2
+pip3 install requests tinydb
+
+echo "VOLTHA-System-Tests virtualenv created. Run 'source ${VENVDIR}/bin/activate'."
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