diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index a03c7f75905..4fc512c33db 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -25,6 +25,8 @@ Hbase Change Log
                knows about workings of memcache
    HBASE-588   Still a 'hole' in scanners, even after HBASE-532
    HBASE-604   Don't allow CLASSPATH from environment pollute the hbase CLASSPATH
+   HBASE-608   HRegionServer::getThisIP() checks hadoop config var for dns interface name
+               (Jim R. Wilson via Stack)
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-559   MR example job to count table rows
diff --git a/conf/hbase-default.xml b/conf/hbase-default.xml
index c44c23d1788..8295abaa528 100644
--- a/conf/hbase-default.xml
+++ b/conf/hbase-default.xml
@@ -57,6 +57,15 @@
     <description>The host and port a HBase region server runs at.
     </description>
   </property>
+  <property>
+    <name>hbase.regionserver.dns.interface</name>
+    <value>default</value>
+    <description>Name of the network interface which a regionserver
+    should use to determine it's "real" IP address.  This lookup
+    prevents strings like "localhost" and "127.0.0.1" from being
+    reported back to the master.
+    </description>
+  </property>
   <property>
     <name>hbase.regionserver.info.port</name>
     <value>60030</value>
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java
index 6daaa954e84..3a4930db4c1 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java
@@ -607,7 +607,7 @@ public class HRegionServer implements HConstants, HRegionInterface, Runnable {
    * @return This servers' IP.
    */
   private String getThisIP() throws UnknownHostException {
-    return DNS.getDefaultIP(conf.get("dfs.datanode.dns.interface","default"));
+    return DNS.getDefaultIP(conf.get("hbase.regionserver.dns.interface","default"));
   }
 
   /**