diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index bf31034d0e..5e5a9eea2a 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ Merged from 1.2:
  * Update system.peers correctly when relocating tokens (CASSANDRA-7126)
  * Add Google Compute Engine snitch (CASSANDRA-7132)
  * remove duplicate query for local tokens (CASSANDRA-7182)
-
+ * exit CQLSH with error status code if script fails (CASSANDRA-6344)
 
 2.1.0-beta2
  * Increase default CL space to 8GB (CASSANDRA-7031)
diff --git a/bin/cqlsh b/bin/cqlsh
index 3f543da322..ade2f21622 100755
--- a/bin/cqlsh
+++ b/bin/cqlsh
@@ -520,6 +520,7 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
         cassandra.cqltypes.BytesType.deserialize = staticmethod(cassandra.cqltypes.BytesType.validate)
         cassandra.cqltypes.CassandraType.support_empty_values = True
         self.empty_lines = 0
+        self.statement_error = False
 
     def set_expanded_cql_version(self, ver):
         ver, vertuple = full_cql_version(ver)
@@ -1687,6 +1688,7 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
         self.query_out.flush()
 
     def printerr(self, text, color=RED, newline=True, shownum=None):
+        self.statement_error = True
         if shownum is None:
             shownum = self.show_line_nums
         if shownum:
@@ -1857,6 +1859,8 @@ def main(options, hostname, port):
 
     shell.cmdloop()
     save_history()
+    if options.file and shell.statement_error:
+        sys.exit(2)
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     main(*read_options(sys.argv[1:], os.environ))