diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 87f3947b3cd..16324c52b17 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -122,6 +122,9 @@ Release 2.0.0 - UNRELEASED
     MAPREDUCE-4105. Yarn RackResolver ignores rack configurations. 
     (Ahmed Radwan via tomwhite)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-3869. Fix classpath for DistributedShell application. (Devaraj K
+    via sseth)
+
 Release 0.23.3 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-applications/hadoop-yarn-applications-distributedshell/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/applications/distributedshell/Client.java b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-applications/hadoop-yarn-applications-distributedshell/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/applications/distributedshell/Client.java
index 39fe08a4417..3b962a3048f 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-applications/hadoop-yarn-applications-distributedshell/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/applications/distributedshell/Client.java
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-yarn/hadoop-yarn-applications/hadoop-yarn-applications-distributedshell/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/yarn/applications/distributedshell/Client.java
@@ -78,7 +78,6 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.api.records.YarnApplicationState;
 import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.conf.YarnConfiguration;
 import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.exceptions.YarnRemoteException;
 import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.ipc.YarnRPC;
-import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.security.client.ClientRMSecurityInfo;
 import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.util.ConverterUtils;
 import org.apache.hadoop.yarn.util.Records;
 
@@ -506,22 +505,20 @@ public class Client {
     // It should be provided out of the box. 
     // For now setting all required classpaths including
     // the classpath to "." for the application jar
-    String classPathEnv = "${CLASSPATH}"
-        + ":./*"
-        + ":$HADOOP_CONF_DIR"
-        + ":$HADOOP_COMMON_HOME/share/hadoop/common/*"
-        + ":$HADOOP_COMMON_HOME/share/hadoop/common/lib/*"
-        + ":$HADOOP_HDFS_HOME/share/hadoop/hdfs/*"
-        + ":$HADOOP_HDFS_HOME/share/hadoop/hdfs/lib/*"
-        + ":$YARN_HOME/modules/*"
-        + ":$YARN_HOME/lib/*"
-        + ":./log4j.properties:";
+    StringBuilder classPathEnv = new StringBuilder("${CLASSPATH}:./*");
+    for (String c : conf.get(YarnConfiguration.YARN_APPLICATION_CLASSPATH)
+        .split(",")) {
+      classPathEnv.append(':');
+      classPathEnv.append(c.trim());
+    }
+    classPathEnv.append(":./log4j.properties");
 
-    // add the runtime classpath needed for tests to work 
+    // add the runtime classpath needed for tests to work
     String testRuntimeClassPath = Client.getTestRuntimeClasspath();
-    classPathEnv += ":" + testRuntimeClassPath; 
+    classPathEnv.append(':');
+    classPathEnv.append(testRuntimeClassPath);
 
-    env.put("CLASSPATH", classPathEnv);
+    env.put("CLASSPATH", classPathEnv.toString());
 
     amContainer.setEnvironment(env);