diff --git a/C4/Auth.pm b/C4/Auth.pm
index c1fb298c84..1e4210d11a 100755
--- a/C4/Auth.pm
+++ b/C4/Auth.pm
@@ -1083,14 +1083,14 @@ sub get_session {
     my $dbh = C4::Context->dbh;
     my $session;
     if ($storage_method eq 'mysql'){
-        $session = new CGI::Session("driver:MySQL", $sessionID, {Handle=>$dbh});
+        $session = new CGI::Session("driver:MySQL;serializer:yaml", $sessionID, {Handle=>$dbh});
     }
     elsif ($storage_method eq 'Pg') {
-        $session = new CGI::Session("driver:PostgreSQL", $sessionID, {Handle=>$dbh});
+        $session = new CGI::Session("driver:PostgreSQL;serializer:yaml", $sessionID, {Handle=>$dbh});
     }
     else {
         # catch all defaults to tmp should work on all systems
-        $session = new CGI::Session("driver:File", $sessionID, {Directory=>'/tmp'});
+        $session = new CGI::Session("driver:File;serializer:yaml", $sessionID, {Directory=>'/tmp'});
     }
     return $session;
 }
diff --git a/Makefile.PL b/Makefile.PL
index d9eb375d00..6eae570328 100644
--- a/Makefile.PL
+++ b/Makefile.PL
@@ -520,6 +520,7 @@ WriteMakefile(
 'XML::SAX::ParserFactory' => 1.01,
 'XML::Simple' => 2.14,
 'XML::RSS' => 1.31,
+'YAML::Syck' => 1.00,
         },
 
 	# File tree mapping
diff --git a/about.pl b/about.pl
index 1833bea57f..e07ba30438 100755
--- a/about.pl
+++ b/about.pl
@@ -112,6 +112,7 @@ XML::LibXSLT
 XML::SAX::ParserFactory
 XML::Simple
 XML::RSS
+YAML::Syck
       /;
 
 my @components = ();
diff --git a/install_misc/debian.packages b/install_misc/debian.packages
index 90685c921b..4c9eefba18 100644
--- a/install_misc/debian.packages
+++ b/install_misc/debian.packages
@@ -59,6 +59,7 @@ libxml2-dev	install
 libxml2-utils	install
 libxslt1-dev	install
 libxslt1.1	install
+libyaml-syck-perl install
 libyaz	install
 libyaz-dev	install
 yaz	install
diff --git a/installer/install.pl b/installer/install.pl
index f13f1e1612..32a552dda3 100755
--- a/installer/install.pl
+++ b/installer/install.pl
@@ -66,6 +66,9 @@ if ( $step && $step == 1 ) {
     unless ( eval { require ZOOM } ) {
         push @missing, { name => "ZOOM" };
     }
+    unless ( eval { require YAML::Syck } ) {
+        push @missing, { name => "YAML::Syck" };
+    }
     unless ( eval { require LWP::Simple } ) {
         push @missing, { name => "LWP::Simple" };
     }