diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 4f7aa278fff..5d32ad0fd9f 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -49,6 +49,9 @@ Release 0.23.3 - UNRELEASED
     MAPREDUCE-3952. In MR2, when Total input paths to process == 1,
     CombinefileInputFormat.getSplits() returns 0 split. (zhenxiao via tucu)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-3578. Starting nodemanager as root gives "Unknown -jvm option"
+    (tomwhite)
+
 Release 0.23.2 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/bin/yarn b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/bin/yarn
index 6f5cf76cdc1..f3b0eeac370 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/bin/yarn
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/bin/yarn
@@ -181,11 +181,7 @@ elif [ "$COMMAND" = "resourcemanager" ] ; then
 elif [ "$COMMAND" = "nodemanager" ] ; then
   CLASSPATH=${CLASSPATH}:$YARN_CONF_DIR/nm-config/log4j.properties
   CLASS='org.apache.hadoop.yarn.server.nodemanager.NodeManager'
-  if [[ $EUID -eq 0 ]]; then
-    YARN_OPTS="$YARN_OPTS -jvm server $YARN_NODEMANAGER_OPTS"
-  else
-    YARN_OPTS="$YARN_OPTS -server $YARN_NODEMANAGER_OPTS"
-  fi
+  YARN_OPTS="$YARN_OPTS -server $YARN_NODEMANAGER_OPTS"
   if [ "$YARN_NODEMANAGER_HEAPSIZE" != "" ]; then
     JAVA_HEAP_MAX="-Xmx""$YARN_NODEMANAGER_HEAPSIZE""m"
   fi