diff --git a/qa/workunits/rbd/test_rbdmap_RBDMAPFILE.sh b/qa/workunits/rbd/test_rbdmap_RBDMAPFILE.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000000..7b2a7724a2e9a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qa/workunits/rbd/test_rbdmap_RBDMAPFILE.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Regression test for http://tracker.ceph.com/issues/14984
+#
+# When the bug is present, starting the rbdmap service causes
+# a bogus log message to be emitted to the log because the RBDMAPFILE
+# environment variable is not set.
+#
+# When the bug is not present, starting the rbdmap service will
+# not show up in the log, because /etc/ceph/rbdmap does not contain
+# any lines that require processing.
+#
+set -ex
+
+which ceph-detect-init >/dev/null || exit 1
+[ "$(ceph-detect-init)" = "systemd" ] || exit 0
+
+echo "TEST: save timestamp for use later with journalctl --since"
+TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y-%m-%d\ %H:%M:%S)
+
+echo "TEST: assert that rbdmap has not logged anything since boot"
+journalctl -b 0 -t rbdmap | grep 'rbdmap\[[[:digit:]]' && exit 1
+journalctl -b 0 -t init-rbdmap | grep 'rbdmap\[[[:digit:]]' && exit 1
+
+echo "TEST: restart the rbdmap.service"
+sudo systemctl restart rbdmap.service
+
+echo "TEST: ensure that /usr/bin/rbdmap runs to completion"
+until sudo systemctl status rbdmap.service | grep 'active (exited)' ; do 
+    sleep 0.5
+done
+
+echo "TEST: assert that rbdmap has not logged anything since TIMESTAMP"
+journalctl --since "$TIMESTAMP" -t rbdmap  | grep 'rbdmap\[[[:digit:]]' && exit 1
+journalctl --since "$TIMESTAMP" -t init-rbdmap | grep 'rbdmap\[[[:digit:]]' && exit 1
+
+exit 0
diff --git a/src/rbdmap b/src/rbdmap
index da60b310b0bd8f..a2a1bf49cd0398 100755
--- a/src/rbdmap
+++ b/src/rbdmap
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
+# save PID in temporary file (used by regression test)
+echo $$ > /tmp/rbdmap.pid
+
 do_map() {
 
         # default to reasonable value if RBDMAPFILE not set in environment