diff --git a/xos/tools/apigen/modelgen b/xos/tools/apigen/modelgen
index 63cf5b7..72cce08 100644
--- a/xos/tools/apigen/modelgen
+++ b/xos/tools/apigen/modelgen
@@ -184,7 +184,17 @@
             print 'Usage: modelgen [options] <template_fn>'
             exit(1)
 
-        output = args[0]
+        template_name = os.path.abspath(args[0])
+
+        # try to make sure we're running from the right place
+        if (not os.path.exists("core")):
+            if (os.path.exists("../core")):
+                os.chdir("..")
+            elif (os.path.exists("../../core")):
+                os.chdir("../..")
+            else:
+                print >> sys.stderr, "Are you sure you're running modelgen from the root of an XOS installation"
+                sys.exit(-1)
 
 	generator = Generator()
 
@@ -194,7 +204,7 @@
 		generator.add_object(m)
 
 	generator.compute_links()
-	template_contents = open(output).read()
+	template_contents = open(template_name).read()
 	template = Template(template_contents)
 	context = Context({'generator':generator})
 	print template.render(context)
diff --git a/xos/tools/dmdot b/xos/tools/dmdot
index 9507749..a57c0b1 100755
--- a/xos/tools/dmdot
+++ b/xos/tools/dmdot
@@ -11,6 +11,14 @@
 
 from django.db.models.fields.related import ForeignKey
 
+# try to make sure we're running from the right place
+if (not os.path.exists("core")):
+   if (os.path.exists("../core")):
+      os.chdir("..")
+   else:
+      print >> sys.stderr, "Are you sure you're running dmdot from the root of an XOS installation"
+      sys.exit(-1)
+
 # defaults
 apps = ["core", "services.hpc", "services.cord", "services.requestrouter", "services.onos"]
 output = "-json"