diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index b0150873cd..b2157d6f9e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -779,6 +779,9 @@ Release 2.6.0 - UNRELEASED
 
     HADOOP-11077. NPE if hosts not specified in ProxyUsers. (gchanan via tucu)
 
+    HADOOP-9989. Bug introduced in HADOOP-9374, which parses the -tokenCacheFile 
+    as binary file but set it to the configuration as JSON file. (zxu via tucu)
+
 Release 2.5.1 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/GenericOptionsParser.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/GenericOptionsParser.java
index 18acbf109a..2a37dac460 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/GenericOptionsParser.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/GenericOptionsParser.java
@@ -332,7 +332,7 @@ private void processGeneralOptions(Configuration conf,
       }
       UserGroupInformation.getCurrentUser().addCredentials(
           Credentials.readTokenStorageFile(p, conf));
-      conf.set("mapreduce.job.credentials.json", p.toString(),
+      conf.set("mapreduce.job.credentials.binary", p.toString(),
                "from -tokenCacheFile command line option");
 
     }
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestGenericOptionsParser.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestGenericOptionsParser.java
index 779318acc8..2bc19154f4 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestGenericOptionsParser.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/TestGenericOptionsParser.java
@@ -249,7 +249,7 @@ public void testTokenCacheOption() throws IOException {
     creds.writeTokenStorageFile(tmpPath, conf);
 
     new GenericOptionsParser(conf, args);
-    String fileName = conf.get("mapreduce.job.credentials.json");
+    String fileName = conf.get("mapreduce.job.credentials.binary");
     assertNotNull("files is null", fileName);
     assertEquals("files option does not match", tmpPath.toString(), fileName);