diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 8e67b138bf..c72f9f7f31 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -736,6 +736,9 @@ Release 0.23.0 - Unreleased
     HADOOP-7755. Detect MapReduce PreCommit Trunk builds silently failing
     when running test-patch.sh. (Jonathan Eagles via tomwhite)
 
+    HADOOP-7744. Ensure failed tests exit with proper error code. (Jonathan
+    Eagles via acmurthy) 
+
 Release 0.22.0 - Unreleased
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/test/CoreTestDriver.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/test/CoreTestDriver.java
index 06590c9cdf..a01e751b2e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/test/CoreTestDriver.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/test/CoreTestDriver.java
@@ -50,11 +50,14 @@ public CoreTestDriver(ProgramDriver pgd) {
   }
 
   public void run(String argv[]) {
+    int exitCode = -1;
     try {
-      pgd.driver(argv);
+      exitCode = pgd.driver(argv);
     } catch(Throwable e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
     }
+
+    System.exit(exitCode);
   }
 
   public static void main(String argv[]){