diff --git a/bin/configure-sqoop b/bin/configure-sqoop
index 9101d531..ee1dd7bd 100755
--- a/bin/configure-sqoop
+++ b/bin/configure-sqoop
@@ -32,6 +32,12 @@ if [ -z "$SQOOP_HOME" ]; then
   export SQOOP_HOME=${bin}/..
 fi
 
+SQOOP_CONF_DIR=${SQOOP_CONF_DIR:-${SQOOP_HOME}/conf}
+
+if [ -f "${SQOOP_CONF_DIR}/sqoop-env.sh" ]; then
+  . "${SQOOP_CONF_DIR}/sqoop-env.sh"
+fi
+
 # Find paths to our dependency systems. If they are unset, use CDH defaults.
 
 if [ -z "${HADOOP_HOME}" ]; then
@@ -89,7 +95,6 @@ if [ -d "${ZOOCFGDIR}" ]; then
   SQOOP_CLASSPATH=$ZOOCFGDIR:$SQOOP_CLASSPATH
 fi
 
-SQOOP_CONF_DIR=${SQOOP_CONF_DIR:-${SQOOP_HOME}/conf}
 SQOOP_CLASSPATH=${SQOOP_CONF_DIR}:${SQOOP_CLASSPATH}
 
 # If there's a build subdir, use Ivy-retrieved dependencies too.
diff --git a/conf/sqoop-env-template.sh b/conf/sqoop-env-template.sh
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0294f17f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/conf/sqoop-env-template.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+# contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+# this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+# The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+# (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+# the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+# included in all the hadoop scripts with source command
+# should not be executable directly
+# also should not be passed any arguments, since we need original $*
+
+# Set Hadoop-specific environment variables here.
+
+#Set path to where bin/hadoop is available
+#export HADOOP_HOME=
+
+#set the path to where bin/hbase is available
+#export HBASE_HOME=
+
+#Set the path to where bin/hive is available
+#export HIVE_HOME=
+
+#Set the path for where zookeper config dir is
+#export ZOOCFGDIR=