diff --git a/FORK.md b/FORK.md
index d2dfa554663a5..8953ae2b3d519 100644
--- a/FORK.md
+++ b/FORK.md
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 # Difference with upstream
-
+* [SPARK-25200](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-25200) - Allow setting HADOOP_CONF_DIR as a spark config
 
 
 
diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkSubmitArguments.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkSubmitArguments.scala
index 3090a3b10a97c..e0a45560a4225 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkSubmitArguments.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/SparkSubmitArguments.scala
@@ -265,9 +265,11 @@ private[deploy] class SparkSubmitArguments(args: Seq[String], env: Map[String, S
 
     if (master.startsWith("yarn")) {
       val hasHadoopEnv = env.contains("HADOOP_CONF_DIR") || env.contains("YARN_CONF_DIR")
-      if (!hasHadoopEnv && !Utils.isTesting) {
+      val hasHadoopProp = sparkProperties.contains("spark.yarn.conf.dir")
+      if (!hasHadoopEnv && !hasHadoopProp && !Utils.isTesting) {
         error(s"When running with master '$master' " +
-          "either HADOOP_CONF_DIR or YARN_CONF_DIR must be set in the environment.")
+          "either HADOOP_CONF_DIR or YARN_CONF_DIR must be set in the environment, +" +
+          "or spark.yarn.conf.dir in the spark properties.")
       }
     }
 
diff --git a/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/AbstractCommandBuilder.java b/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/AbstractCommandBuilder.java
index 3ae4633c79b04..94d242fb80f43 100644
--- a/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/AbstractCommandBuilder.java
+++ b/launcher/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/launcher/AbstractCommandBuilder.java
@@ -204,6 +204,7 @@ List<String> buildClassPath(String appClassPath) throws IOException {
 
     addToClassPath(cp, getenv("HADOOP_CONF_DIR"));
     addToClassPath(cp, getenv("YARN_CONF_DIR"));
+    addToClassPath(cp, getEffectiveConfig().get("spark.yarn.conf.dir"));
     addToClassPath(cp, getenv("SPARK_DIST_CLASSPATH"));
     return new ArrayList<>(cp);
   }
diff --git a/resource-managers/yarn/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/Client.scala b/resource-managers/yarn/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/Client.scala
index 6da6a8daad2b0..3fa46d869a0f9 100644
--- a/resource-managers/yarn/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/Client.scala
+++ b/resource-managers/yarn/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/Client.scala
@@ -710,11 +710,11 @@ private[spark] class Client(
     // SPARK-23630: during testing, Spark scripts filter out hadoop conf dirs so that user's
     // environments do not interfere with tests. This allows a special env variable during
     // tests so that custom conf dirs can be used by unit tests.
-    val confDirs = Seq("HADOOP_CONF_DIR", "YARN_CONF_DIR") ++
-      (if (Utils.isTesting) Seq("SPARK_TEST_HADOOP_CONF_DIR") else Nil)
+    val confDirs = Seq("HADOOP_CONF_DIR", "YARN_CONF_DIR").flatMap(sys.env.get) ++
+          sparkConf.getOption("spark.yarn.conf.dir")
 
-    confDirs.foreach { envKey =>
-      sys.env.get(envKey).foreach { path =>
+    confDirs.foreach {
+      path => {
         val dir = new File(path)
         if (dir.isDirectory()) {
           val files = dir.listFiles()
diff --git a/resource-managers/yarn/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/YarnClusterSuite.scala b/resource-managers/yarn/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/YarnClusterSuite.scala
index 7ec15023c59b0..25364f0e2e132 100644
--- a/resource-managers/yarn/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/YarnClusterSuite.scala
+++ b/resource-managers/yarn/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/yarn/YarnClusterSuite.scala
@@ -136,8 +136,9 @@ class YarnClusterSuite extends BaseYarnClusterSuite {
     val finalState = runSpark(false,
       mainClassName(YarnClusterDriverUseSparkHadoopUtilConf.getClass),
       appArgs = Seq("key=value", "spark.test.key=testvalue", result.getAbsolutePath()),
-      extraConf = Map("spark.hadoop.key" -> "value"),
-      extraEnv = Map("SPARK_TEST_HADOOP_CONF_DIR" -> customConf.getAbsolutePath()))
+      extraConf = Map(
+        "spark.hadoop.key" -> "value",
+        "spark.yarn.conf.dir" -> customConf.getAbsolutePath))
     checkResult(finalState, result)
   }