diff --git a/config/discourse_defaults.conf b/config/discourse_defaults.conf
index ebaa77e5d..db0672468 100644
--- a/config/discourse_defaults.conf
+++ b/config/discourse_defaults.conf
@@ -86,3 +86,6 @@ redis_password =
 # enable Cross-origin Resource Sharing (CORS) directly at the application level
 enable_cors = false
 cors_origin = '*'
+
+# enable if you really need to serve assets in prd
+serve_static_assets = false
diff --git a/config/environments/production.rb b/config/environments/production.rb
index c63b5d05c..4a0e2af5c 100644
--- a/config/environments/production.rb
+++ b/config/environments/production.rb
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Discourse::Application.configure do
   config.action_controller.perform_caching = true
 
   # Disable Rails's static asset server (Apache or nginx will already do this)
-  config.serve_static_assets = false
+  config.serve_static_assets = GlobalSetting.serve_static_assets
 
   if rails4?
     config.assets.js_compressor  = :uglifier