diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 39453d120c6..5189eabf4cc 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -790,6 +790,9 @@ Release 2.7.0 - UNRELEASED
 
     HDFS-7676. Fix TestFileTruncate to avoid bug of HDFS-7611. (shv)
 
+    HDFS-49. MiniDFSCluster.stopDataNode will always shut down a node in
+    the cluster if a matching name is not found. (stevel)
+
 Release 2.6.1 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/MiniDFSCluster.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/MiniDFSCluster.java
index 7367ffbc32e..8551263e935 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/MiniDFSCluster.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/MiniDFSCluster.java
@@ -1923,6 +1923,9 @@ public boolean changeGenStampOfBlock(int dnIndex, ExtendedBlock blk,
 
   /*
    * Shutdown a particular datanode
+   * @param i node index
+   * @return null if the node index is out of range, else the properties of the
+   * removed node
    */
   public synchronized DataNodeProperties stopDataNode(int i) {
     if (i < 0 || i >= dataNodes.size()) {
@@ -1941,18 +1944,20 @@ public synchronized DataNodeProperties stopDataNode(int i) {
 
   /*
    * Shutdown a datanode by name.
+   * @return the removed datanode or null if there was no match
    */
   public synchronized DataNodeProperties stopDataNode(String dnName) {
-    int i;
-    for (i = 0; i < dataNodes.size(); i++) {
+    int node = -1;
+    for (int i = 0; i < dataNodes.size(); i++) {
       DataNode dn = dataNodes.get(i).datanode;
       LOG.info("DN name=" + dnName + " found DN=" + dn +
           " with name=" + dn.getDisplayName());
       if (dnName.equals(dn.getDatanodeId().getXferAddr())) {
+        node = i;
         break;
       }
     }
-    return stopDataNode(i);
+    return stopDataNode(node);
   }
 
   /**