diff --git a/cloud/script/start.sh b/cloud/script/start.sh
index befe0a9f2e9df8..17c3791e1cdc0f 100644
--- a/cloud/script/start.sh
+++ b/cloud/script/start.sh
@@ -129,7 +129,8 @@ if [[ ${enable_hdfs} -eq 1 ]]; then
         done
     fi
 
-    export CLASSPATH="${DORIS_CLASSPATH}"
+    # and conf/ dir so that hadoop libhdfs can read .xml config file in conf/
+    export CLASSPATH="${DORIS_HOME}/conf/:${DORIS_CLASSPATH}:${CLASSPATH}"
 
     export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${JAVA_HOME}/lib/server:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}"