diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/resources/hdfs-default.xml b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/resources/hdfs-default.xml
index 997589791b4..a7ba58d8764 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/resources/hdfs-default.xml
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/resources/hdfs-default.xml
@@ -383,6 +383,15 @@
   </description>
 </property>
 
+<property>
+  <name>dfs.namenode.edits.dir.required</name>
+  <value></value>
+  <description>This should be a subset of dfs.namenode.edits.dir,
+      to ensure that the transaction (edits) file
+      in these places is always up-to-date.
+  </description>
+</property>
+
 <property>
   <name>dfs.namenode.shared.edits.dir</name>
   <value></value>