diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 8b9f228a85..6772681eff 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -369,6 +369,8 @@ Trunk (Unreleased)
 
     HADOOP-11380. Restore Rack Awareness documenation (aw)
 
+    HADOOP-11397. Can't override HADOOP_IDENT_STRING (Kengo Seki via aw)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
     HADOOP-7761. Improve the performance of raw comparisons. (todd)
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-functions.sh b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-functions.sh
index af45cec51a..a953e0c7cf 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-functions.sh
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-functions.sh
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@ function hadoop_basic_init
     export HADOOP_MAPRED_HOME="${HADOOP_PREFIX}"
   fi
   
-  HADOOP_IDENT_STRING=${HADOP_IDENT_STRING:-$USER}
+  HADOOP_IDENT_STRING=${HADOOP_IDENT_STRING:-$USER}
   HADOOP_LOG_DIR=${HADOOP_LOG_DIR:-"${HADOOP_PREFIX}/logs"}
   HADOOP_LOGFILE=${HADOOP_LOGFILE:-hadoop.log}
   HADOOP_LOGLEVEL=${HADOOP_LOGLEVEL:-INFO}