diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index a399ca06617..7fee93cc31a 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -413,6 +413,9 @@ Release 2.5.0 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-10872. TestPathData fails intermittently with "Mkdirs failed
     to create d1". (Yongjun Zhang via Arpit Agarwal)
 
+    HADOOP-10890. TestDFVariations.testMount fails intermittently. (Yongjun
+    Zhang via Arpit Agarwal)
+
 Release 2.4.1 - 2014-06-23 
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestDFVariations.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestDFVariations.java
index d0177c7fd5d..abb5703feb0 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestDFVariations.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestDFVariations.java
@@ -29,14 +29,33 @@ import java.util.Random;
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.test.GenericTestUtils;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.Shell;
+import org.junit.After;
+import org.junit.Before;
 import org.junit.Test;
+
 import static org.junit.Assert.*;
 
 public class TestDFVariations {
+  private static final String TEST_ROOT_DIR =
+      System.getProperty("test.build.data","build/test/data") + "/TestDFVariations";
+  private static File test_root = null;
 
+  @Before
+  public void setup() throws IOException {
+    test_root = new File(TEST_ROOT_DIR);
+    test_root.mkdirs();
+  }
+  
+  @After
+  public void after() throws IOException {
+    FileUtil.setWritable(test_root, true);
+    FileUtil.fullyDelete(test_root);
+    assertTrue(!test_root.exists());
+  }
+  
   public static class XXDF extends DF {
     public XXDF() throws IOException {
-      super(new File(System.getProperty("test.build.data","/tmp")), 0L);
+      super(test_root, 0L);
     }
 
     @Override