diff --git a/zeppelin-zengine/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/notebook/NotebookTest.java b/zeppelin-zengine/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/notebook/NotebookTest.java
index 1ca37e62f6d..2770e0b1c4d 100644
--- a/zeppelin-zengine/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/notebook/NotebookTest.java
+++ b/zeppelin-zengine/src/test/java/org/apache/zeppelin/notebook/NotebookTest.java
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Collections;
@@ -106,6 +107,9 @@ public void setUp() throws Exception {
     schedulerService = new QuartzSchedulerService(conf, notebook);
     notebook.initNotebook();
     notebook.waitForFinishInit(1, TimeUnit.MINUTES);
+
+    // create empty shiro.ini file under confDir
+    Files.createFile(new File(confDir, "shiro.ini").toPath());
   }
 
   @Override