diff --git a/tooling/exam/container/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/container/internal/KarafTestContainer.java b/tooling/exam/container/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/container/internal/KarafTestContainer.java
index 70da410..fed2293 100644
--- a/tooling/exam/container/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/container/internal/KarafTestContainer.java
+++ b/tooling/exam/container/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/container/internal/KarafTestContainer.java
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
 
 import java.io.*;
 import java.net.MalformedURLException;
+import java.net.URISyntaxException;
 import java.net.URL;
 import java.util.*;
 
@@ -115,7 +116,15 @@ public class KarafTestContainer implements TestContainer {
             }
 
             targetFolder = retrieveFinalTargetFolder(subsystem);
+            if(!framework.isFrameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory()) {
             extractKarafDistribution(sourceDistribution, targetFolder);
+            } else {
+                try {
+                    targetFolder = new File(sourceDistribution.toURI());
+                } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
+                    throw new RuntimeException(e);
+                }
+            }
 
             File javaHome = new File(System.getProperty("java.home"));
             File karafBase = searchKarafBase(targetFolder);
diff --git a/tooling/exam/options/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/options/KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption.java b/tooling/exam/options/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/options/KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption.java
index b7d755d..e2088c1 100644
--- a/tooling/exam/options/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/options/KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption.java
+++ b/tooling/exam/options/src/main/java/org/apache/karaf/tooling/exam/options/KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption.java
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ public class KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption implements Option {
     protected String karafVersion;
     protected File unpackDirectory;
     protected boolean useDeployFolder = true;
+    protected boolean frameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory = false;
 
     public KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption() {
         frameworkURL = null;
@@ -44,6 +45,15 @@ public class KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption implements Option {
         this.karafVersion = karafVersion;
     }
 
+    public KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption(String frameworkURL, String name, String karafVersion,
+                                                    Boolean frameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory) {
+        this.frameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory = frameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory;
+        this.frameworkURL = frameworkURL;
+        frameworkURLReference = null;
+        this.name = name;
+        this.karafVersion = karafVersion;
+    }
+
     public KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption(MavenUrlReference frameworkURLReference, String name,
                                                     String karafVersion) {
         frameworkURL = null;
@@ -145,4 +155,7 @@ public class KarafDistributionBaseConfigurationOption implements Option {
         return useDeployFolder;
     }
 
+    public boolean isFrameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory() {
+        return frameworkUrlPointsToTargetDirectory;
+    }
 }