diff --git a/docs/index.md b/docs/index.md
index 9a59097bb4efb..52f1a5a51978d 100644
--- a/docs/index.md
+++ b/docs/index.md
@@ -39,6 +39,8 @@ Note that support for Java 7, Python 2.6 and old Hadoop versions before 2.6.5 we
 Support for Scala 2.10 was removed as of 2.3.0. Support for Scala 2.11 is deprecated as of Spark 2.4.1
 and will be removed in Spark 3.0.
 
+For Java 8u251+, `HTTP2_DISABLE=true` and `spark.kubernetes.driverEnv.HTTP2_DISABLE=true` are required additionally for fabric8 `kubernetes-client` library to talk to Kubernetes clusters. This prevents `KubernetesClientException` when `kubernetes-client` library uses `okhttp` library internally.
+
 # Running the Examples and Shell
 
 Spark comes with several sample programs.  Scala, Java, Python and R examples are in the
diff --git a/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/README.md b/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/README.md
index b3863e6b7d1af..20bd8b5689e93 100644
--- a/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/README.md
+++ b/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/README.md
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ The simplest way to run the integration tests is to install and run Minikube, th
 
     dev/dev-run-integration-tests.sh
 
+For Java 8u251+, `HTTP2_DISABLE=true` and `spark.kubernetes.driverEnv.HTTP2_DISABLE=true` are required additionally for fabric8 `kubernetes-client` library to talk to Kubernetes clusters. This prevents `KubernetesClientException` when `kubernetes-client` library uses `okhttp` library internally.
+
 The minimum tested version of Minikube is 0.23.0. The kube-dns addon must be enabled. Minikube should
 run with a minimum of 3 CPUs and 4G of memory:
 
diff --git a/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/ClientModeTestsSuite.scala b/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/ClientModeTestsSuite.scala
index c8bd584516ea5..d1508e91616e7 100644
--- a/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/ClientModeTestsSuite.scala
+++ b/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/ClientModeTestsSuite.scala
@@ -16,9 +16,11 @@
  */
 package org.apache.spark.deploy.k8s.integrationtest
 
-import org.scalatest.concurrent.Eventually
 import scala.collection.JavaConverters._
 
+import io.fabric8.kubernetes.api.model.EnvVar
+import org.scalatest.concurrent.Eventually
+
 import org.apache.spark.deploy.k8s.integrationtest.KubernetesSuite.{k8sTestTag, INTERVAL, TIMEOUT}
 
 private[spark] trait ClientModeTestsSuite { k8sSuite: KubernetesSuite =>
@@ -66,6 +68,7 @@ private[spark] trait ClientModeTestsSuite { k8sSuite: KubernetesSuite =>
             .withName("spark-example")
             .withImage(image)
             .withImagePullPolicy("IfNotPresent")
+            .withEnv(new EnvVar("HTTP2_DISABLE", "true", null))
             .withCommand("/opt/spark/bin/run-example")
             .addToArgs("--master", s"k8s://https://kubernetes.default.svc")
             .addToArgs("--deploy-mode", "client")
diff --git a/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/KubernetesSuite.scala b/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/KubernetesSuite.scala
index e6840ce818c1f..d89343388186c 100644
--- a/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/KubernetesSuite.scala
+++ b/resource-managers/kubernetes/integration-tests/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/deploy/k8s/integrationtest/KubernetesSuite.scala
@@ -108,6 +108,7 @@ private[spark] class KubernetesSuite extends SparkFunSuite
       .set("spark.kubernetes.container.image", image)
       .set("spark.kubernetes.driver.pod.name", driverPodName)
       .set("spark.kubernetes.driver.label.spark-app-locator", appLocator)
+      .set("spark.kubernetes.driverEnv.HTTP2_DISABLE", "true")
       .set("spark.kubernetes.executor.label.spark-app-locator", appLocator)
     if (!kubernetesTestComponents.hasUserSpecifiedNamespace) {
       kubernetesTestComponents.createNamespace()