diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index d06cb82ef5a..21299dfa477 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -36,7 +36,9 @@ RUN chown hadoop /opt
 ADD scripts /opt/
 ADD scripts/krb5.conf /etc/
 RUN yum install -y krb5-workstation
-
+RUN mkdir -p /etc/hadoop && mkdir -p /var/log/hadoop && chmod 1777 /etc/hadoop && chmod 1777 /var/log/hadoop
+ENV HADOOP_LOG_DIR=/var/log/hadoop
+ENV HADOOP_CONF_DIR=/etc/hadoop
 WORKDIR /opt/hadoop
 
 VOLUME /data
diff --git a/scripts/envtoconf.py b/scripts/envtoconf.py
index ad2e176570b..0e2c3686276 100755
--- a/scripts/envtoconf.py
+++ b/scripts/envtoconf.py
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ class Simple(object):
 
     self.known_formats = ['xml', 'properties', 'yaml', 'yml', 'env', "sh", "cfg", 'conf']
     self.output_dir = self.args.destination
-
+    self.excluded_envs = ['HADOOP_CONF_DIR']
     self.configurables = {}
 
   def destination_file_path(self, name, extension):
@@ -51,6 +51,8 @@ class Simple(object):
   def process_envs(self):
     """Process environment variables"""
     for key in os.environ.keys():
+      if key in self.excluded_envs:
+          continue
       pattern = re.compile("[_\\.]")
       parts = pattern.split(key)
       extension = None
diff --git a/scripts/starter.sh b/scripts/starter.sh
index 7688ce7d7fb..13286076f2e 100755
--- a/scripts/starter.sh
+++ b/scripts/starter.sh
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ fi
 #To avoid docker volume permission problems
 sudo chmod o+rwx /data
 
-"$DIR"/envtoconf.py --destination /opt/hadoop/etc/hadoop
+"$DIR"/envtoconf.py --destination "${HADOOP_CONF_DIR:-/opt/hadoop/etc/hadoop}"
 
 if [ -n "$ENSURE_NAMENODE_DIR" ]; then
   CLUSTERID_OPTS=""