diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 6c6f4063e77..bf7199be26e 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -55,6 +55,8 @@ Release 2.7.4 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-10712. TestDataNodeVolumeFailure should pass not null
     BlockReportContext. (Vinitha Gankidi via shv)
 
+    HDFS-11053. Unnecessary superuser check in versionRequest() (kihwal)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
     HDFS-10896. Move lock logging logic from FSNamesystem into FSNamesystemLock.
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeRpcServer.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeRpcServer.java
index ef1ea60e65e..4f30f975fac 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeRpcServer.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNodeRpcServer.java
@@ -1410,7 +1410,6 @@ class NameNodeRpcServer implements NamenodeProtocols {
   @Override // DatanodeProtocol, NamenodeProtocol
   public NamespaceInfo versionRequest() throws IOException {
     checkNNStartup();
-    namesystem.checkSuperuserPrivilege();
     return namesystem.getNamespaceInfo();
   }