diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 9275c87d8f92773e22e6da08575918a1721c33b6..7428c15d61f94ae4fe56637bc12087c418d6e215 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 SUBDIRS = bin conf lib resources templates
 
-EXTRA_DIST = LICENSE.txt README.txt
+EXTRA_DIST = LICENSE.txt README.md
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..2010e7f4c9c6a23f3dab784ea14bad50deec8a8b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+#eduGAIN Access Check
+
+##Overview
+
+eduGAIN Access Check can be used by SP admins to validate the behaviour of
+their federated service in a production environment.
+
+It is actually composed of two parts:
+* account manager
+* identity provider
+
+##Account Manager
+
+This is a web application developed in Perl, allowing SP admins to create test accounts with multiple user profiles.
+
+It requires the following CPAN distributions:
+* CGI
+* Config-Tiny
+* DateTime
+* HTTP-AcceptLanguage
+* List-MoreUtils
+* Log-Any
+* Rose-DB-Object
+* Template-Toolkit
+* Text-CSV
+* XML-LibXML
+
+Installation follows the usual autotools-based procedure:
+```
+$> configure
+$> make
+$> sudo make install
+```
+
+A database has to be created, and its schema populated. For instance, with MariaDB:
+```
+$> mysqladmin create -u root -p access_check
+Enter password:
+$> mysql -u root -p access_check < conf/access-check.sql
+Enter password:
+$> mysql -u root -p mysql
+Enter password:
+MariaDB [mysql]> grant all privileges on access_check.* to access_check@localhost identified by 's3cr3t';
+Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
+MariaDB [mysql]> quit
+```
+
+##Identity Provider
+
+The identity provider is actually [simpleSAMLphp](https://simplesamlphp.org/).
+
+##Licensing
+This software is licensed under GÉANT Standard Open Source Software Outward
+Licence.
+
+This software was developed by RENATER, with funding from the European
+Community Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement nº
+238875 (GÉANT).
+
+This software was initialy authored by Olivier Salaün.
diff --git a/README.txt b/README.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 734dd32834471d578a997f3992772ce5c28a7152..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/README.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
-IdP Account Manager
--------------------
-This software is licensed under GÉANT Standard Open Source Software Outward
-Licence.
-
-This software was developed by RENATER, with funding from the European
-Community Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement nº
-238875 (GÉANT).
-
-This software was initialy authored by Olivier Salaün.