diff --git a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/HiveClientImpl.scala b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/HiveClientImpl.scala
index 81d5a124e9d4..e71a101755c5 100644
--- a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/HiveClientImpl.scala
+++ b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/HiveClientImpl.scala
@@ -18,13 +18,14 @@
 package org.apache.spark.sql.hive.client
 
 import java.io.{File, PrintStream}
+import java.net.{MalformedURLException, URL}
 
 import scala.collection.JavaConverters._
 import scala.collection.mutable.ArrayBuffer
 import scala.language.reflectiveCalls
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration
-import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.{FileSystem, FsUrlStreamHandlerFactory, Path}
 import org.apache.hadoop.hive.conf.HiveConf
 import org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.{TableType => HiveTableType}
 import org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.api.{Database => HiveDatabase, FieldSchema}
@@ -86,6 +87,9 @@ private[hive] class HiveClientImpl(
   // Circular buffer to hold what hive prints to STDOUT and ERR.  Only printed when failures occur.
   private val outputBuffer = new CircularBuffer()
 
+  // An object lock to ensure URL factory is registered exactly once.
+  object URLFactoryRegistrationLock
+
   private val shim = version match {
     case hive.v12 => new Shim_v0_12()
     case hive.v13 => new Shim_v0_13()
@@ -690,7 +694,27 @@ private[hive] class HiveClientImpl(
       new File(path).toURI.toURL
     } else {
       // `path` is a URL with a scheme
-      uri.toURL
+      try {
+        uri.toURL
+      } catch {
+        case e: MalformedURLException =>
+          Option(FileSystem.get(uri, hadoopConf)) match {
+            case Some(fs) =>
+              URLFactoryRegistrationLock.synchronized {
+                try {
+                  // check one more time, in case another thread set the factory.
+                  uri.toURL
+                } catch {
+                  case e: MalformedURLException =>
+                    // Register the URLStreamHanlerFactory so hdfs urls work.
+                    URL.setURLStreamHandlerFactory(new FsUrlStreamHandlerFactory(hadoopConf))
+                    uri.toURL
+                }
+              }
+            case None =>
+              throw e
+          }
+      }
     }
     clientLoader.addJar(jarURL)
     runSqlHive(s"ADD JAR $path")
diff --git a/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveQuerySuite.scala b/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveQuerySuite.scala
index 3c7dbb449c52..763a9d637109 100644
--- a/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveQuerySuite.scala
+++ b/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveQuerySuite.scala
@@ -856,6 +856,17 @@ class HiveQuerySuite extends HiveComparisonTest with BeforeAndAfter {
     sql("DROP TABLE alter1")
   }
 
+  test("SPARK-12868 ADD JAR FROM HDFS") {
+    val testJar = "hdfs://nn:8020/foo.jar"
+    // This should fail with unknown host, as its just testing the URL parsing
+    // before SPARK-12868 it was failing with Malformed URI
+    val e = intercept[RuntimeException] {
+      sql(s"ADD JAR $testJar")
+    }
+    e.printStackTrace()
+    assert(e.getMessage.contains("java.net.UnknownHostException: nn"))
+  }
+
   test("ADD JAR command 2") {
     // this is a test case from mapjoin_addjar.q
     val testJar = TestHive.getHiveFile("hive-hcatalog-core-0.13.1.jar").getCanonicalPath