diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 8b6bb0e5cd5..dec49bbd20c 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -125,6 +125,10 @@ Release 2.0.4-alpha - UNRELEASED
 
   BUG FIXES
 
+    MAPREDUCE-5117. Changed MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl to be closeable and thus
+    fix failures in renewal of HistoryServer's delegations tokens. (Siddharth
+    Seth via vinodkv)
+
 Release 2.0.3-alpha - 2013-02-06 
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/api/impl/pb/client/MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl.java b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/api/impl/pb/client/MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl.java
index ad2ce63144f..d8aa812f294 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/api/impl/pb/client/MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl.java
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/api/impl/pb/client/MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl.java
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 
 package org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.v2.api.impl.pb.client;
 
+import java.io.Closeable;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
 
@@ -101,7 +102,8 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.exceptions.impl.pb.YarnRemoteExceptionPBImpl;
 
 import com.google.protobuf.ServiceException;
 
-public class MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl implements MRClientProtocol {
+public class MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl implements MRClientProtocol,
+    Closeable {
 
   protected MRClientProtocolPB proxy;
   
@@ -117,6 +119,13 @@ public class MRClientProtocolPBClientImpl implements MRClientProtocol {
     return RPC.getServerAddress(proxy);
   }
 
+  @Override
+  public void close() {
+    if (this.proxy != null) {
+      RPC.stopProxy(this.proxy);
+    }
+  }
+
   @Override
   public GetJobReportResponse getJobReport(GetJobReportRequest request)
       throws YarnRemoteException {