diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index b7fa2bc7f9..6691880da8 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -623,6 +623,8 @@ Release 2.1.0-beta - 2013-07-02
     HADOOP-9707. Fix register lists for crc32c inline assembly. (todd via
     kihwal)
 
+    HADOOP-9738. TestDistCh fails. (jing9 via kihwal)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HADOOP-8562 SUBTASKS AND RELATED JIRAS
 
     HADOOP-8924. Hadoop Common creating package-info.java must not depend on
diff --git a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCh.java b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCh.java
index 0606fa9f19..8779e06555 100644
--- a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCh.java
+++ b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCh.java
@@ -24,8 +24,6 @@
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Stack;
 
-import javax.security.auth.login.LoginException;
-
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileStatus;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem;
@@ -47,10 +45,7 @@
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapred.RecordReader;
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapred.Reporter;
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapred.SequenceFileRecordReader;
-import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.Job;
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.JobSubmissionFiles;
-import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.jobhistory.JobSubmittedEvent;
-import org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.StringUtils;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.ToolRunner;
 
diff --git a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/TestDistCh.java b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/TestDistCh.java
index 53f20b2aec..79265e6093 100644
--- a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/TestDistCh.java
+++ b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-extras/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/TestDistCh.java
@@ -113,6 +113,8 @@ Path mkdir(Path dir) throws IOException {
   }
 
   static class ChPermissionStatus extends PermissionStatus {
+    private final boolean defaultPerm;
+    
     ChPermissionStatus(FileStatus filestatus) {
       this(filestatus, "", "", "");
     }
@@ -121,6 +123,7 @@ static class ChPermissionStatus extends PermissionStatus {
       super("".equals(owner)? filestatus.getOwner(): owner, 
           "".equals(group)? filestatus.getGroup(): group,
           "".equals(permission)? filestatus.getPermission(): new FsPermission(Short.parseShort(permission, 8)));
+      defaultPerm = permission == null || "".equals(permission);
     }
   }
   
@@ -141,7 +144,7 @@ public void testDistCh() throws Exception {
       runLsr(shell, tree.root, 0);
 
       final String[] args = new String[NUN_SUBS];
-      final PermissionStatus[] newstatus = new PermissionStatus[NUN_SUBS];
+      final ChPermissionStatus[] newstatus = new ChPermissionStatus[NUN_SUBS];
 
       
       args[0]="/test/testDistCh/sub0:sub1::";
@@ -185,13 +188,11 @@ public void testDistCh() throws Exception {
     }
   }
 
- 
-
-  static void checkFileStatus(PermissionStatus expected, FileStatus actual) {
+  static void checkFileStatus(ChPermissionStatus expected, FileStatus actual) {
     assertEquals(expected.getUserName(), actual.getOwner());
     assertEquals(expected.getGroupName(), actual.getGroup());
-    FsPermission perm = expected.getPermission(); 
-    if (actual.isFile()) {
+    FsPermission perm = expected.getPermission();
+    if (actual.isFile() && expected.defaultPerm) {
       perm = perm.applyUMask(UMASK);
     }
     assertEquals(perm, actual.getPermission());