diff --git a/indexing-hadoop/src/main/java/io/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.java b/indexing-hadoop/src/main/java/io/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.java
index 25672e85cad..75d44a6ede8 100644
--- a/indexing-hadoop/src/main/java/io/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.java
+++ b/indexing-hadoop/src/main/java/io/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.java
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ import io.druid.timeline.DataSegment;
 import io.druid.timeline.partition.ShardSpec;
 import io.druid.timeline.partition.ShardSpecLookup;
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.InputFormat;
 import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.Job;
@@ -62,6 +63,8 @@ import org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat;
 
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.io.Reader;
 import java.nio.charset.Charset;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
@@ -171,6 +174,28 @@ public class HadoopDruidIndexerConfig
     }
   }
 
+  @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
+  public static HadoopDruidIndexerConfig fromDistributedFileSystem(String path)
+  {
+    try
+    {
+      Path pt = new Path(path);
+      FileSystem fs = pt.getFileSystem(new Configuration());
+      Reader reader = new InputStreamReader(fs.open(pt));
+
+      return fromMap(
+        (Map<String, Object>) HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.jsonMapper.readValue(
+            reader, new TypeReference<Map<String, Object>>()
+            {
+            }
+            )
+        );
+    }
+    catch (Exception e) {
+      throw Throwables.propagate(e);
+    }
+  }
+
   public static HadoopDruidIndexerConfig fromConfiguration(Configuration conf)
   {
     final HadoopDruidIndexerConfig retVal = fromString(conf.get(HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.CONFIG_PROPERTY));
diff --git a/services/src/main/java/io/druid/cli/CliInternalHadoopIndexer.java b/services/src/main/java/io/druid/cli/CliInternalHadoopIndexer.java
index efc3206d441..03a28f02d13 100644
--- a/services/src/main/java/io/druid/cli/CliInternalHadoopIndexer.java
+++ b/services/src/main/java/io/druid/cli/CliInternalHadoopIndexer.java
@@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ import io.druid.indexer.updater.MetadataStorageUpdaterJobSpec;
 import io.druid.metadata.MetadataStorageConnectorConfig;
 
 import java.io.File;
+import java.net.URI;
+import java.net.URISyntaxException;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Properties;
 
@@ -116,7 +118,26 @@ public class CliInternalHadoopIndexer extends GuiceRunnable
         if (argumentSpec.startsWith("{")) {
           config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromString(argumentSpec);
         } else {
-          config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromFile(new File(argumentSpec));
+          File localConfigFile = null;
+
+          try {
+            final URI argumentSpecUri = new URI(argumentSpec);
+            final String argumentSpecScheme = argumentSpecUri.getScheme();
+
+            if (argumentSpecScheme == null || argumentSpecScheme.equals("file")) {
+              // File URI.
+              localConfigFile = new File(argumentSpecUri.getPath());
+            }
+          } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
+            // Not a URI, assume it's a local file.
+            localConfigFile = new File(argumentSpec);
+          }
+
+          if (localConfigFile != null) {
+            config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromFile(localConfigFile);
+          } else {
+            config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromDistributedFileSystem(argumentSpec);
+          }
         }
       }
       catch (Exception e) {