diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index b706eff568..610f0a509e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1056,6 +1056,8 @@ Release 0.23.5 - UNRELEASED
   NEW FEATURES
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
+    HADOOP-8923. JNI-based user-group mapping modules can be too chatty on 
+    lookup failures. (Kihwal Lee via suresh)
 
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping.java
index 504780b931..b711c58952 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping.java
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ public class JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping implements GroupMappingServiceProvider {
       throw new RuntimeException("Bailing out since native library couldn't " +
         "be loaded");
     }
-    LOG.info("Using JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping for Group resolution");
+    LOG.debug("Using JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping for Group resolution");
   }
 
   @Override
@@ -57,7 +57,11 @@ public List<String> getGroups(String user) throws IOException {
     try {
       groups = getGroupForUser(user);
     } catch (Exception e) {
-      LOG.warn("Error getting groups for " + user, e);
+      if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()) {
+        LOG.debug("Error getting groups for " + user, e);
+      } else {
+        LOG.info("Error getting groups for " + user + ": " + e.getMessage());
+      }
     }
     return Arrays.asList(groups);
   }
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping.java
index cd72dfa6af..fc3c4a7f47 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping.java
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ public class JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping
       throw new RuntimeException("Bailing out since native library couldn't " +
         "be loaded");
     }
-    LOG.info("Using JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping for Netgroup resolution");
+    LOG.debug("Using JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping for Netgroup resolution");
   }
 
   /**
@@ -115,7 +115,12 @@ protected synchronized List<String> getUsersForNetgroup(String netgroup) {
       // JNI code does not expect '@' at the begining of the group name
       users = getUsersForNetgroupJNI(netgroup.substring(1));
     } catch (Exception e) {
-      LOG.warn("error getting users for netgroup " + netgroup, e);
+      if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()) {
+        LOG.debug("Error getting users for netgroup " + netgroup, e);
+      } else {
+        LOG.info("Error getting users for netgroup " + netgroup + 
+            ": " + e.getMessage());
+      }
     }
     if (users != null && users.length != 0) {
       return Arrays.asList(users);