diff --git a/Authors b/Authors
index 146ad39f5..d92663df2 100644
--- a/Authors
+++ b/Authors
@@ -118,6 +118,7 @@ Ricardo Carrillo Cruz <emaildericky@gmail.com>
 Rick Clark <rick@openstack.org>
 Rick Harris <rconradharris@gmail.com>
 Rob Kost <kost@isi.edu>
+Russell Bryant <rbryant@redhat.com>
 Ryan Lane <rlane@wikimedia.org>
 Ryan Lucio <rlucio@internap.com>
 Ryu Ishimoto <ryu@midokura.jp>
diff --git a/nova/utils.py b/nova/utils.py
index 992482223..278e03e6e 100644
--- a/nova/utils.py
+++ b/nova/utils.py
@@ -169,6 +169,9 @@ def execute(*cmd, **kwargs):
 
     :raises exception.Error on receiving unknown arguments
     :raises exception.ProcessExecutionError
+
+    :returns a tuple, (stdout, stderr) from the spawned process, or None if
+             the command fails.
     """
 
     process_input = kwargs.pop('process_input', None)