diff --git a/hadoop-hdds/rocks-native/pom.xml b/hadoop-hdds/rocks-native/pom.xml
index 2146da977ff..5fc46abf208 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdds/rocks-native/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-hdds/rocks-native/pom.xml
@@ -235,6 +235,7 @@
                       <arg line="${project.build.directory}/rocksdb/rocksdb-${rocksdb.version}"/>
                     </exec>
                     <exec executable="make" dir="${project.build.directory}/rocksdb/rocksdb-${rocksdb.version}" failonerror="true">
+                      <arg line="PORTABLE=1"/>
                       <arg line="DEBUG_LEVEL=0"/>
                       <arg line="EXTRA_CXXFLAGS='-fPIC -D_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=0'"/>
                       <arg line="-j${system.numCores}"/>