diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 0e498b15260..29785040fb5 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -356,6 +356,9 @@ Release 2.1.2 - UNRELEASED
 
     HDFS-5268. NFS write commit verifier is not set in a few places (brandonli)
 
+    HDFS-5265. Namenode fails to start when dfs.https.port is unspecified.
+    (Haohui Mai via jing9)
+
 Release 2.1.1-beta - 2013-09-23
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeHttpServer.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeHttpServer.java
index b645c9a0d47..620e4ffb33e 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeHttpServer.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeHttpServer.java
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ public void start() throws IOException {
     if (certSSL) {
       boolean needClientAuth = conf.getBoolean("dfs.https.need.client.auth", false);
       InetSocketAddress secInfoSocAddr = NetUtils.createSocketAddr(infoHost + ":" + conf.get(
-        DFSConfigKeys.DFS_NAMENODE_HTTPS_PORT_KEY, infoHost + ":" + 0));
+        DFSConfigKeys.DFS_NAMENODE_HTTPS_PORT_KEY, "0"));
       Configuration sslConf = new Configuration(false);
       if (certSSL) {
         sslConf.addResource(conf.get(DFSConfigKeys.DFS_SERVER_HTTPS_KEYSTORE_RESOURCE_KEY,
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/TestNameNodeHttpServer.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/TestNameNodeHttpServer.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..72cd92b3c1d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/TestNameNodeHttpServer.java
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.apache.hadoop.hdfs;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+
+import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+public class TestNameNodeHttpServer {
+
+  @Test
+  public void testSslConfiguration() throws IOException {
+    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
+    conf.setBoolean(DFSConfigKeys.DFS_HTTPS_ENABLE_KEY, true);
+    System.setProperty("jetty.ssl.password", "foo");
+    System.setProperty("jetty.ssl.keypassword", "bar");
+
+    MiniDFSCluster dfsCluster = new MiniDFSCluster.Builder(conf)
+        .numDataNodes(0).build();
+    dfsCluster.waitActive();
+    dfsCluster.shutdown();
+  }
+}