diff --git a/src/hydra-queue-runner/hydra-queue-runner.cc b/src/hydra-queue-runner/hydra-queue-runner.cc
index 3b9ae480..62eb572c 100644
--- a/src/hydra-queue-runner/hydra-queue-runner.cc
+++ b/src/hydra-queue-runner/hydra-queue-runner.cc
@@ -156,7 +156,8 @@ void State::monitorMachinesFile()
     if (machinesFiles.empty()) {
         parseMachines("localhost " +
             (settings.thisSystem == "x86_64-linux" ? "x86_64-linux,i686-linux" : settings.thisSystem.get())
-            + " - " + std::to_string(settings.maxBuildJobs) + " 1");
+            + " - " + std::to_string(settings.maxBuildJobs) + " 1 "
+            + concatStringsSep(",", settings.systemFeatures.get()));
         return;
     }
 
diff --git a/t/default-machine-file.t b/t/default-machine-file.t
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..01203a72
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/default-machine-file.t
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+use feature 'unicode_strings';
+use strict;
+use Setup;
+
+my %ctx = test_init();
+
+require Hydra::Schema;
+require Hydra::Model::DB;
+
+use Test2::V0;
+
+my $db = Hydra::Model::DB->new;
+hydra_setup($db);
+
+my $project = $db->resultset('Projects')->create({name => "tests", displayname => "", owner => "root"});
+
+my $jobset = createBaseJobset("default-machine-file", "default-machine-file.nix", $ctx{jobsdir});
+
+ok(evalSucceeds($jobset),               "Evaluating jobs/default-machine-file.nix should exit with return code 0");
+is(nrQueuedBuildsForJobset($jobset), 1, "Evaluating jobs/default-machine-file.nix should result in 1 build");
+
+for my $build (queuedBuildsForJobset($jobset)) {
+    ok(runBuild($build), "Build '".$build->job."' from jobs/default-machine-file.nix should exit with code 0");
+    my $newbuild = $db->resultset('Builds')->find($build->id);
+    is($newbuild->finished, 1, "Build '".$build->job."' from jobs/default-machine-file.nix should be finished.");
+    my $expected = $build->job eq "fails" ? 1 : $build->job =~ /with_failed/ ? 6 : 0;
+    is($newbuild->buildstatus, $expected, "Build '".$build->job."' from jobs/default-machine-file.nix should have buildstatus $expected.");
+}
+
+done_testing;
diff --git a/t/jobs/default-machine-file.nix b/t/jobs/default-machine-file.nix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..49647cb0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/jobs/default-machine-file.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+with import ./config.nix;
+{
+  requireExperimentalFeatures =
+    mkDerivation {
+      name = "empty-dir";
+      builder = ./empty-dir-builder.sh;
+      requiredSystemFeatures = [ "test-system-feature" ];
+    };
+}
diff --git a/t/lib/Setup.pm b/t/lib/Setup.pm
index b5236978..fc078ac5 100644
--- a/t/lib/Setup.pm
+++ b/t/lib/Setup.pm
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ sub test_init {
     my $nixconf = "$ENV{'NIX_CONF_DIR'}/nix.conf";
     open(my $fh, '>', $nixconf) or die "Could not open file '$nixconf' $!";
     print $fh "sandbox = false\n";
+    print $fh "system-features = test-system-feature\n";
     print $fh $opts{'nix_config'} || "";
     close $fh;