diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index ae1e22a1bb..7a05f2e12b 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -938,6 +938,9 @@ Release 0.23.3 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-8695. TestPathData fails intermittently with JDK7 (Trevor
     Robinson via tgraves)
 
+    HADOOP-8611. Allow fall-back to the shell-based implementation when 
+    JNI-based users-group mapping fails (Robert Parker via bobby) 
+
 Release 0.23.2 - UNRELEASED 
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5b6d538f8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback.java
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.hadoop.security;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
+import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+import org.apache.hadoop.util.NativeCodeLoader;
+
+public class JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback implements
+    GroupMappingServiceProvider {
+
+  private static final Log LOG = LogFactory
+      .getLog(JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback.class);
+  
+  private GroupMappingServiceProvider impl;
+
+  public JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback() {
+    if (NativeCodeLoader.isNativeCodeLoaded()) {
+      this.impl = new JniBasedUnixGroupsMapping();
+    } else {
+      LOG.info("Falling back to shell based");
+      this.impl = new ShellBasedUnixGroupsMapping();
+    }
+    if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()){
+      LOG.debug("Group mapping impl=" + impl.getClass().getName());
+    }
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public List<String> getGroups(String user) throws IOException {
+    return impl.getGroups(user);
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public void cacheGroupsRefresh() throws IOException {
+    impl.cacheGroupsRefresh();
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public void cacheGroupsAdd(List<String> groups) throws IOException {
+    impl.cacheGroupsAdd(groups);
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7d77c1097b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback.java
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.hadoop.security;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
+import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+import org.apache.hadoop.util.NativeCodeLoader;
+
+public class JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback implements
+    GroupMappingServiceProvider {
+
+  private static final Log LOG = LogFactory
+      .getLog(JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback.class);
+
+  private GroupMappingServiceProvider impl;
+
+  public JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback() {
+    if (NativeCodeLoader.isNativeCodeLoaded()) {
+      this.impl = new JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping();
+    } else {
+      LOG.info("Falling back to shell based");
+      this.impl = new ShellBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping();
+    }
+    if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()) {
+      LOG.debug("Group mapping impl=" + impl.getClass().getName());
+    }
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public List<String> getGroups(String user) throws IOException {
+    return impl.getGroups(user);
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public void cacheGroupsRefresh() throws IOException {
+    impl.cacheGroupsRefresh();
+  }
+
+  @Override
+  public void cacheGroupsAdd(List<String> groups) throws IOException {
+    impl.cacheGroupsAdd(groups);
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupFallback.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupFallback.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a61eee6409
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupFallback.java
@@ -0,0 +1,105 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.hadoop.security;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
+
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
+import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.CommonConfigurationKeys;
+import org.apache.log4j.Level;
+import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+public class TestGroupFallback {
+  public static final Log LOG = LogFactory.getLog(TestGroupFallback.class);
+
+  @Test
+  public void testGroupShell() throws Exception {
+    Logger.getRootLogger().setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
+    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
+    conf.set(CommonConfigurationKeys.HADOOP_SECURITY_GROUP_MAPPING,
+        "org.apache.hadoop.security.ShellBasedUnixGroupsMapping");
+
+    Groups groups = new Groups(conf);
+
+    String username = System.getProperty("user.name");
+    List<String> groupList = groups.getGroups(username);
+
+    LOG.info(username + " has GROUPS: " + groupList.toString());
+    assertTrue(groupList.size() > 0);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void testNetgroupShell() throws Exception {
+    Logger.getRootLogger().setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
+    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
+    conf.set(CommonConfigurationKeys.HADOOP_SECURITY_GROUP_MAPPING,
+        "org.apache.hadoop.security.ShellBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMapping");
+
+    Groups groups = new Groups(conf);
+
+    String username = System.getProperty("user.name");
+    List<String> groupList = groups.getGroups(username);
+
+    LOG.info(username + " has GROUPS: " + groupList.toString());
+    assertTrue(groupList.size() > 0);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void testGroupWithFallback() throws Exception {
+    LOG.info("running 'mvn -Pnative -DTestGroupFallback clear test' will " +
+        "test the normal path and 'mvn -DTestGroupFallback clear test' will" +
+        " test the fall back functionality");
+    Logger.getRootLogger().setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
+    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
+    conf.set(CommonConfigurationKeys.HADOOP_SECURITY_GROUP_MAPPING,
+        "org.apache.hadoop.security.JniBasedUnixGroupsMappingWithFallback");
+
+    Groups groups = new Groups(conf);
+
+    String username = System.getProperty("user.name");
+    List<String> groupList = groups.getGroups(username);
+
+    LOG.info(username + " has GROUPS: " + groupList.toString());
+    assertTrue(groupList.size() > 0);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void testNetgroupWithFallback() throws Exception {
+    LOG.info("running 'mvn -Pnative -DTestGroupFallback clear test' will " +
+        "test the normal path and 'mvn -DTestGroupFallback clear test' will" +
+        " test the fall back functionality");
+    Logger.getRootLogger().setLevel(Level.DEBUG);
+    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
+    conf.set(CommonConfigurationKeys.HADOOP_SECURITY_GROUP_MAPPING,
+        "org.apache.hadoop.security.JniBasedUnixGroupsNetgroupMappingWithFallback");
+
+    Groups groups = new Groups(conf);
+
+    String username = System.getProperty("user.name");
+    List<String> groupList = groups.getGroups(username);
+
+    LOG.info(username + " has GROUPS: " + groupList.toString());
+    assertTrue(groupList.size() > 0);
+  }
+
+}