diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 6eb550062ce..e6f6e77bf31 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -571,6 +571,9 @@ Release 2.1.0-beta - UNRELEASED
 
     HADOOP-9605. Update junit dependency. (Timothy St. Clair via cos)
 
+    HADOOP-9581. hadoop --config non-existent directory should result in error
+    (Ashwin Shankar via jlowe)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HADOOP-8562 SUBTASKS AND RELATED JIRAS
 
     HADOOP-8924. Hadoop Common creating package-info.java must not depend on
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-config.sh b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-config.sh
index 5e9e6846128..ea66af59d54 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-config.sh
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/bin/hadoop-config.sh
@@ -60,6 +60,10 @@ then
 	  then
 	      shift
 	      confdir=$1
+	      if [ ! -d "$confdir" ]; then
+                echo "Error: Cannot find configuration directory: $confdir"
+                exit 1
+             fi
 	      shift
 	      HADOOP_CONF_DIR=$confdir
     fi