diff --git a/test/functional/__init__.py b/test/functional/__init__.py
index cd32a210f3..2adb15b66c 100644
--- a/test/functional/__init__.py
+++ b/test/functional/__init__.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 from __future__ import print_function
 import mock
 import os
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse, urlsplit, urlunsplit
 import sys
 import pickle
 import socket
@@ -574,10 +574,7 @@ def in_process_setup(the_object_server=object_server):
             "Content-Language, Expires, X-Robots-Tag",
         # Below are values used by the functional test framework, as well as
         # by the various in-process swift servers
-        'auth_host': '127.0.0.1',
-        'auth_port': str(prolis.getsockname()[1]),
-        'auth_ssl': 'no',
-        'auth_prefix': '/auth/',
+        'auth_uri': 'http://127.0.0.1:%d/auth/v1.0' % prolis.getsockname()[1],
         # Primary functional test account (needs admin access to the
         # account)
         'account': 'test',
@@ -844,23 +841,39 @@ def setup_package():
     if config:
         swift_test_auth_version = str(config.get('auth_version', '1'))
 
-        swift_test_auth = 'http'
-        if config_true_value(config.get('auth_ssl', 'no')):
-            swift_test_auth = 'https'
-        if 'auth_prefix' not in config:
-            config['auth_prefix'] = '/'
-        try:
-            suffix = '://%(auth_host)s:%(auth_port)s%(auth_prefix)s' % config
-            swift_test_auth += suffix
-        except KeyError:
-            pass  # skip
+        if 'auth_uri' in config:
+            swift_test_auth = config['auth_uri']
+            # Back-fill the individual parts -- really, we should just need
+            # host and port for s3_test_client, and that's only until we
+            # improve it to take a s3_storage_url option
+            parsed = urlsplit(config['auth_uri'])
+            config.update({
+                'auth_ssl': parsed.scheme == 'https',
+                'auth_host': parsed.hostname,
+                'auth_port': (parsed.port if parsed.port is not None else
+                              443 if parsed.scheme == 'https' else 80),
+                'auth_prefix': parsed.path,
+            })
+        elif 'auth_host' in config:
+            scheme = 'http'
+            if config_true_value(config.get('auth_ssl', 'no')):
+                scheme = 'https'
+            netloc = config['auth_host']
+            if 'auth_port' in config:
+                netloc += ':' + config['auth_port']
+            auth_prefix = config.get('auth_prefix', '/')
+            if swift_test_auth_version == "1":
+                auth_prefix += 'v1.0'
+            config['auth_uri'] = swift_test_auth = urlunsplit(
+                (scheme, netloc, auth_prefix, None, None))
+        # else, neither auth_uri nor auth_host; swift_test_auth will be unset
+        # and we'll skip everything later
 
         if 'service_prefix' in config:
                 swift_test_service_prefix = utils.append_underscore(
                     config['service_prefix'])
 
         if swift_test_auth_version == "1":
-            swift_test_auth += 'v1.0'
 
             try:
                 if 'account' in config:
diff --git a/test/functional/swift_test_client.py b/test/functional/swift_test_client.py
index ae00644d9c..df8a851b5e 100644
--- a/test/functional/swift_test_client.py
+++ b/test/functional/swift_test_client.py
@@ -198,16 +198,13 @@ def putrequest(self, method, url, skip_host=False, skip_accept_encoding=False):
 
 class Connection(object):
     def __init__(self, config):
-        for key in 'auth_host auth_port auth_ssl username password'.split():
+        for key in 'auth_uri username password'.split():
             if key not in config:
                 raise SkipTest(
                     "Missing required configuration parameter: %s" % key)
 
-        self.auth_host = config['auth_host']
-        self.auth_port = int(config['auth_port'])
-        self.auth_ssl = config['auth_ssl'] in ('on', 'true', 'yes', '1')
+        self.auth_url = config['auth_uri']
         self.insecure = config_true_value(config.get('insecure', 'false'))
-        self.auth_prefix = config.get('auth_prefix', '/')
         self.auth_version = str(config.get('auth_version', '1'))
 
         self.account = config.get('account')
@@ -256,18 +253,10 @@ class Connection(object):
         return Account(self, self.account)
 
     def authenticate(self):
-        if self.auth_version == "1":
-            auth_path = '%sv1.0' % (self.auth_prefix)
-            if self.account:
-                auth_user = '%s:%s' % (self.account, self.username)
-            else:
-                auth_user = self.username
+        if self.auth_version == "1" and self.account:
+            auth_user = '%s:%s' % (self.account, self.username)
         else:
             auth_user = self.username
-            auth_path = self.auth_prefix
-        auth_scheme = 'https://' if self.auth_ssl else 'http://'
-        auth_netloc = "%s:%d" % (self.auth_host, self.auth_port)
-        auth_url = auth_scheme + auth_netloc + auth_path
 
         if self.insecure:
             try:
@@ -283,7 +272,7 @@ class Connection(object):
                         auth_version=self.auth_version, os_options={},
                         insecure=self.insecure)
         (storage_url, storage_token) = get_auth(
-            auth_url, auth_user, self.password, **authargs)
+            self.auth_url, auth_user, self.password, **authargs)
 
         if not (storage_url and storage_token):
             raise AuthenticationFailed()
diff --git a/test/sample.conf b/test/sample.conf
index d33be75486..1f55fc7b0b 100644
--- a/test/sample.conf
+++ b/test/sample.conf
@@ -1,17 +1,11 @@
 [func_test]
 # Sample config for Swift with tempauth
-auth_host = 127.0.0.1
-auth_port = 8080
-auth_ssl = no
-auth_prefix = /auth/
+auth_uri = http://127.0.0.1:8080/auth/v1.0
 # Sample config for Swift with Keystone v2 API.
 # For keystone v2 change auth_version to 2 and auth_prefix to /v2.0/.
 # And "allow_account_management" should not be set "true".
 #auth_version = 3
-#auth_host = localhost
-#auth_port = 5000
-#auth_ssl = no
-#auth_prefix = /v3/
+#auth_uri = http://localhost:5000/v3/
 
 # Primary functional test account (needs admin access to the account)
 account = test