diff --git a/xCAT-server/lib/perl/xCAT/Template.pm b/xCAT-server/lib/perl/xCAT/Template.pm
index e89a807d7..4f4be37e0 100644
--- a/xCAT-server/lib/perl/xCAT/Template.pm
+++ b/xCAT-server/lib/perl/xCAT/Template.pm
@@ -9,6 +9,13 @@ use File::Path;
 #use Data::Dumper;
 use Sys::Syslog;
 use xCAT::ADUtils; #to allow setting of one-time machine passwords
+
+BEGIN
+{
+      $::XCATROOT = $ENV{'XCATROOT'} ? $ENV{'XCATROOT'} : '/opt/xcat';
+}
+
+
 my $netdnssupport = eval {
     require Net::DNS;
     1;