diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index d5365b2292..834b3abe6e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -82,7 +82,9 @@ Trunk (unreleased changes)
     HADOOP-7808. Port HADOOP-7510 - Add configurable option to use original 
     hostname in token instead of IP to allow server IP change. 
     (Daryn Sharp via suresh)
-  
+ 
+    HADOOP-7957. Classes deriving GetGroupsBase should be able to override 
+    proxy creation. (jitendra)
 
   BUGS
 
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/GetGroupsBase.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/GetGroupsBase.java
index 4d627cbb5f..da7830de6b 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/GetGroupsBase.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/tools/GetGroupsBase.java
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ protected abstract InetSocketAddress getProtocolAddress(Configuration conf)
    * @return A {@link GetUserMappingsProtocol} client proxy.
    * @throws IOException
    */
-  private GetUserMappingsProtocol getUgmProtocol() throws IOException {
+  protected GetUserMappingsProtocol getUgmProtocol() throws IOException {
     GetUserMappingsProtocol userGroupMappingProtocol =
       RPC.getProxy(GetUserMappingsProtocol.class, 
           GetUserMappingsProtocol.versionID,