diff --git a/cmd/kubeadm/app/apis/kubeadm/v1alpha1/defaults.go b/cmd/kubeadm/app/apis/kubeadm/v1alpha1/defaults.go
index 88581a1dc0a..948956e46d9 100644
--- a/cmd/kubeadm/app/apis/kubeadm/v1alpha1/defaults.go
+++ b/cmd/kubeadm/app/apis/kubeadm/v1alpha1/defaults.go
@@ -65,6 +65,8 @@ const (
 	DefaultProxyBindAddressv4 = "0.0.0.0"
 	// DefaultProxyBindAddressv6 is the default bind address when the advertise address is v6
 	DefaultProxyBindAddressv6 = "::"
+	// KubeproxyKubeConfigFileName efines the file name for the kube-proxy's KubeConfig file
+	KubeproxyKubeConfigFileName = "/var/lib/kube-proxy/kubeconfig.conf"
 )
 
 func addDefaultingFuncs(scheme *runtime.Scheme) error {
@@ -127,6 +129,10 @@ func SetDefaults_ProxyConfiguration(obj *MasterConfiguration) {
 		obj.KubeProxy.Config.ClusterCIDR = obj.Networking.PodSubnet
 	}
 
+	if obj.KubeProxy.Config.ClientConnection.KubeConfigFile == "" {
+		obj.KubeProxy.Config.ClientConnection.KubeConfigFile = KubeproxyKubeConfigFileName
+	}
+
 	kubeproxyscheme.Scheme.Default(obj.KubeProxy.Config)
 }