diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index ca03caa139..9634d0c3a3 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1114,6 +1114,9 @@ Release 0.23.9 - UNRELEASED
     MAPREDUCE-5308. Shuffling to memory can get out-of-sync when fetching
     multiple compressed map outputs (Nathan Roberts via jlowe)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-5315.  DistCp reports success even on failure. (mithun and jlowe
+    via daryn)
+
 Release 0.23.8 - 2013-06-05
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-distcp/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCp.java b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-distcp/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCp.java
index 2452efa86e..06d71047dd 100644
--- a/hadoop-tools/hadoop-distcp/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCp.java
+++ b/hadoop-tools/hadoop-distcp/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/DistCp.java
@@ -162,8 +162,9 @@ public Job execute() throws Exception {
     job.getConfiguration().set(DistCpConstants.CONF_LABEL_DISTCP_JOB_ID, jobID);
     
     LOG.info("DistCp job-id: " + jobID);
-    if (inputOptions.shouldBlock()) {
-      job.waitForCompletion(true);
+    if (inputOptions.shouldBlock() && !job.waitForCompletion(true)) {
+      throw new IOException("DistCp failure: Job " + jobID + " has failed: "
+          + job.getStatus().getFailureInfo());
     }
     return job;
   }