diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index f3b609ef136..942d5fe0469 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1283,6 +1283,9 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
 
     HADOOP-6451. Fix build to run contrib unit tests. (Tom White via cdouglas)
 
+    HADOOP-6374. JUnit tests should never depend on anything in conf.
+    (Anatoli Fomenko via cos)
+
 Release 0.20.2 - Unreleased
 
   NEW FEATURES
diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 5925662ca6b..a6d7d83be96 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -87,6 +87,7 @@
   <property name="test.junit.printsummary" value="yes" />
   <property name="test.junit.haltonfailure" value="no" />
   <property name="test.junit.maxmemory" value="512m" />
+  <property name="test.conf.dir" value="${build.dir}/test/conf" />
 
   <property name="test.core.build.classes" value="${test.build.dir}/core/classes"/>
 
@@ -190,7 +191,9 @@
     <pathelement location="${build.tools}"/>
     <pathelement path="${clover.jar}"/>
     <path refid="ivy-test.classpath"/>
-    <path refid="classpath"/>
+    <pathelement location="${build.classes}"/>
+    <pathelement location="${test.conf.dir}"/>
+    <path refid="ivy-common.classpath"/>
   </path>
 <!--
   <path id="test.hdfs.classpath">
@@ -256,6 +259,12 @@
       <mapper type="glob" from="*.template" to="*"/>
     </copy>
 
+    <mkdir dir="${test.conf.dir}"/>
+    <copy todir="${test.conf.dir}" verbose="true">
+      <fileset dir="${conf.dir}" includes="**/*.template"/>
+      <mapper type="glob" from="*.template" to="*"/>
+    </copy>
+
     <copy todir="${contrib.dir}" verbose="true">
       <fileset dir="${contrib.dir}" includes="**/*.template"/>
       <mapper type="glob" from="*.template" to="*"/>