diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/Groups.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/Groups.java
index 1b3adc14283ee..65de5a1a0cccc 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/Groups.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/Groups.java
@@ -130,7 +130,11 @@ public Groups(Configuration conf, final Timer timer) {
           CommonConfigurationKeys.
               HADOOP_SECURITY_GROUPS_CACHE_BACKGROUND_RELOAD_THREADS_DEFAULT);
     parseStaticMapping(conf);
-
+    if(cacheTimeout<=0){
+    throw new IllegalArgumentException(
+       "hadoop.security.groups.cache.secs should be larger than 0",
+        new IllegalArgumentException("hadoop.security.groups.cache.secs should be larger than 0"));
+    }
     this.timer = timer;
     this.cache = CacheBuilder.newBuilder()
       .refreshAfterWrite(cacheTimeout, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupsCaching.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupsCaching.java
index 87788691f6d1b..25b2ca0eb1efd 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupsCaching.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/security/TestGroupsCaching.java
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ public static void resetRequestCount() {
 
   @Test
   public void testGroupsCaching() throws Exception {
-    // Disable negative cache.
+    // Disable zero cache.
     conf.setLong(
         CommonConfigurationKeys.HADOOP_SECURITY_GROUPS_NEGATIVE_CACHE_SECS, 0);
     Groups groups = new Groups(conf);