diff --git a/test/src/main/java/org/jvnet/hudson/test/HudsonTestCase.java b/test/src/main/java/org/jvnet/hudson/test/HudsonTestCase.java
index a6417608e5c11f04550b9794edfe1a94cf695b0c..7e492bcb4570d74055c463c443d2d1f9d4f037e9 100644
--- a/test/src/main/java/org/jvnet/hudson/test/HudsonTestCase.java
+++ b/test/src/main/java/org/jvnet/hudson/test/HudsonTestCase.java
@@ -1851,6 +1851,15 @@ public abstract class HudsonTestCase extends TestCase implements RootAction {
         // DNS multicast support takes up a lot of time during tests, so just disable it altogether
         // this also prevents tests from falsely advertising Hudson
         DNSMultiCast.disabled = true;
+
+        if (!Functions.isWindows()) {
+            try {
+                GNUCLibrary.LIBC.unsetenv("MAVEN_OPTS");
+                GNUCLibrary.LIBC.unsetenv("MAVEN_DEBUG_OPTS");
+            } catch (Exception e) {
+                LOGGER.log(Level.WARNING,"Failed to cancel out MAVEN_OPTS",e);
+            }
+        }
     }
 
     public static class TestBuildWrapper extends BuildWrapper {