diff --git a/src/conf/storage_conf.c b/src/conf/storage_conf.c
index 0f4fe1451e..72c53872cb 100644
--- a/src/conf/storage_conf.c
+++ b/src/conf/storage_conf.c
@@ -1407,9 +1407,10 @@ virStorageVolDefParse(virStoragePoolDef *pool,
 {
     g_autoptr(xmlDoc) xml = NULL;
     g_autoptr(xmlXPathContext) ctxt = NULL;
+    bool validate = flags & VIR_VOL_XML_PARSE_VALIDATE;
 
     if (!(xml = virXMLParse(filename, xmlStr, _("(storage_volume_definition)"),
-                            "volume", &ctxt, NULL, false)))
+                            "volume", &ctxt, "storagevol.rng", validate)))
         return NULL;
 
     return virStorageVolDefParseXML(pool, ctxt, flags);
diff --git a/src/conf/storage_conf.h b/src/conf/storage_conf.h
index bbfdbc2f2f..fc67957cfe 100644
--- a/src/conf/storage_conf.h
+++ b/src/conf/storage_conf.h
@@ -284,6 +284,8 @@ typedef enum {
     VIR_VOL_XML_PARSE_NO_CAPACITY  = 1 << 0,
     /* do not require volume capacity if the volume has a backing store */
     VIR_VOL_XML_PARSE_OPT_CAPACITY = 1 << 1,
+    /* validate the XML against the RNG schema */
+    VIR_VOL_XML_PARSE_VALIDATE = 1 << 2,
 } virStorageVolDefParseFlags;
 
 virStorageVolDef *