diff --git a/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/HdfsPlugin.java b/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/HdfsPlugin.java
index dd8f817fec3..8981fd02b58 100644
--- a/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/HdfsPlugin.java
+++ b/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/HdfsPlugin.java
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ public class HdfsPlugin extends Plugin {
     private static Void evilHadoopInit() {
         String oldValue = null;
         try {
-            // hack: on Windows, Shell's cinit has a similar problem that on unix,
+            // hack: on Windows, Shell's clinit has a similar problem that on unix,
             // but here we can workaround it for now by setting hadoop home
             // TODO: remove THIS when hadoop is fixed
             Path hadoopHome = Files.createTempDirectory("hadoop").toAbsolutePath();
diff --git a/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/TestingFs.java b/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/TestingFs.java
index 548ac75af72..d39afe9cb74 100644
--- a/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/TestingFs.java
+++ b/plugins/repository-hdfs/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/plugin/hadoop/hdfs/TestingFs.java
@@ -21,14 +21,20 @@ package org.elasticsearch.plugin.hadoop.hdfs;
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.DelegateToFileSystem;
-import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileStatus;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.RawLocalFileSystem;
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.permission.FsPermission;
 import org.apache.lucene.util.LuceneTestCase;
 
+import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.net.URI;
 import java.net.URISyntaxException;
+import java.nio.file.Path;
+import java.nio.file.attribute.BasicFileAttributes;
+import java.nio.file.spi.FileSystemProvider;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
+import java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException;
 
 /**
  * Extends LFS to improve some operations to keep the security permissions at
@@ -36,25 +42,76 @@ import java.net.URISyntaxException;
  */
 public class TestingFs extends DelegateToFileSystem {
 
-    private static class ImprovedRawLocalFileSystem extends RawLocalFileSystem {
-        @Override
-        public Path getInitialWorkingDirectory() {
-            // sets working dir to a tmp dir for testing
-            return new Path(LuceneTestCase.createTempDir().toString());
-        }
-        
-        @Override
-        public void setPermission(Path p, FsPermission permission) {
-           // no execution, thank you very much!
-        }
+    // wrap hadoop rawlocalfilesystem to behave less crazy
+    static RawLocalFileSystem wrap(final Path base) {
+        final FileSystemProvider baseProvider = base.getFileSystem().provider();
+        return new RawLocalFileSystem() {
+
+            private org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path box(Path path) {
+                return new org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path(path.toUri());
+            }
+
+            private Path unbox(org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path path) {
+                return baseProvider.getPath(path.toUri());
+            }
+
+            @Override
+            protected org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path getInitialWorkingDirectory() {
+                return box(base);
+            }
+
+            @Override
+            public void setPermission(org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path path, FsPermission permission) {
+               // no execution, thank you very much!
+            }
+
+            // pretend we don't support symlinks (which causes hadoop to want to do crazy things),
+            // returning the boolean does not seem to really help, link-related operations are still called.
+
+            @Override
+            public boolean supportsSymlinks() {
+                return false;
+            }
+
+            @Override
+            public FileStatus getFileLinkStatus(org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path path) throws IOException {
+                return getFileStatus(path);
+            }
+
+            @Override
+            public org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path getLinkTarget(org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path path) throws IOException {
+                return path;
+            }
+
+            @Override
+            public FileStatus getFileStatus(org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path path) throws IOException {
+                BasicFileAttributes attributes;
+                try {
+                    attributes = Files.readAttributes(unbox(path), BasicFileAttributes.class);
+                } catch (NoSuchFileException e) {
+                    // unfortunately, specific exceptions are not guaranteed. don't wrap hadoop over a zip filesystem or something.
+                    FileNotFoundException fnfe = new FileNotFoundException("File " + path + " does not exist");
+                    fnfe.initCause(e);
+                    throw fnfe;
+                }
+
+                // we set similar values to raw local filesystem, except we are never a symlink
+                long length = attributes.size();
+                boolean isDir = attributes.isDirectory();
+                int blockReplication = 1;
+                long blockSize = getDefaultBlockSize(path);
+                long modificationTime = attributes.creationTime().toMillis();
+                return new FileStatus(length, isDir, blockReplication, blockSize, modificationTime, path);
+            }
+        };
     }
 
     public TestingFs(URI uri, Configuration configuration) throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
-        super(URI.create("file:///"), new ImprovedRawLocalFileSystem(), configuration, "file", false);
+        super(URI.create("file:///"), wrap(LuceneTestCase.createTempDir()), configuration, "file", false);
     }
 
     @Override
-    public void checkPath(Path path) {
+    public void checkPath(org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path path) {
       // we do evil stuff, we admit it.
     }
 }