diff --git a/common/CHANGES.txt b/common/CHANGES.txt
index 7b0cd6cf1f..5df8eeefa0 100644
--- a/common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -294,6 +294,9 @@ Trunk (unreleased changes)
 
     HADOOP-7474. Refactor ClientCache out of WritableRpcEngine. (jitendra)
 
+    HADOOP-7491. hadoop command should respect HADOOP_OPTS when given
+    a class name. (eli)
+    
   OPTIMIZATIONS
   
     HADOOP-7333. Performance improvement in PureJavaCrc32. (Eric Caspole
diff --git a/common/bin/hadoop b/common/bin/hadoop
index a7ed92c417..d42644d377 100755
--- a/common/bin/hadoop
+++ b/common/bin/hadoop
@@ -118,6 +118,7 @@ case $COMMAND in
         echo "Error: No command named \`$COMMAND' was found. Perhaps you meant \`hadoop ${COMMAND#-}'"
         exit 1
     else
+      HADOOP_OPTS="$HADOOP_OPTS $HADOOP_CLIENT_OPTS"
       CLASS=$COMMAND
     fi
     shift