diff --git a/hbase-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseCommonTestingUtil.java b/hbase-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseCommonTestingUtil.java
index f78e9de9a38f..77502db9e17a 100644
--- a/hbase-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseCommonTestingUtil.java
+++ b/hbase-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseCommonTestingUtil.java
@@ -40,7 +40,9 @@
 /**
  * Common helpers for testing HBase that do not depend on specific server/etc. things.
  */
-@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate(HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX)
+@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate({HBaseInterfaceAudience.COPROC,
+  HBaseInterfaceAudience.REPLICATION,
+  HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX})
 @InterfaceStability.Evolving
 public class HBaseCommonTestingUtil {
   protected static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(HBaseCommonTestingUtil.class);
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseTestingUtil.java b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseTestingUtil.java
index 1979732861dc..e116cd7bfd09 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseTestingUtil.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseTestingUtil.java
@@ -172,7 +172,9 @@
  * <p>To preserve test data directories, pass the system property "hbase.testing.preserve.testdir"
  * setting it to true.
  */
-@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate(HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX)
+@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate({HBaseInterfaceAudience.COPROC,
+  HBaseInterfaceAudience.REPLICATION,
+  HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX})
 @InterfaceStability.Evolving
 public class HBaseTestingUtil extends HBaseZKTestingUtil {
 
diff --git a/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/ServerTestingHBaseCluster.java b/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/ServerTestingHBaseCluster.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..49d12c9d0fa2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/ServerTestingHBaseCluster.java
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.hadoop.hbase.testing;
+
+import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HBaseInterfaceAudience;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HBaseTestingUtil;
+import org.apache.yetus.audience.InterfaceAudience;
+
+/**
+ * This interface is intended for uncommon testing use cases which need to access internal state
+ * on an HBase minicluster. This may be necessary when testing code which runs within an HBase
+ * server process, such as coprocessors or replication endpoints. It provides access to the
+ * underlying {@link HBaseTestingUtil}, which its parent {@link TestingHBaseCluster} interface
+ * intentionally does not. External use cases that just need to test their code using the HBase
+ * client API should use {@link TestingHBaseCluster} instead.
+ */
+@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate(
+  {HBaseInterfaceAudience.COPROC, HBaseInterfaceAudience.REPLICATION,
+    HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX})
+public interface ServerTestingHBaseCluster extends TestingHBaseCluster {
+  /**
+   *
+   * @return the utility running the minicluster
+   */
+  HBaseTestingUtil getUtil();
+
+  /**
+   * Create a {@link ServerTestingHBaseCluster}. You need to call {@link #start()} of the returned
+   * {@link ServerTestingHBaseCluster} to actually start the mini testing cluster.
+   */
+  static ServerTestingHBaseCluster create(TestingHBaseClusterOption option) {
+    return new TestingHBaseClusterImpl(option);
+  }
+}
diff --git a/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/TestingHBaseClusterImpl.java b/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/TestingHBaseClusterImpl.java
index e2c42616091b..154a961e0913 100644
--- a/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/TestingHBaseClusterImpl.java
+++ b/hbase-testing-util/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/testing/TestingHBaseClusterImpl.java
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 import org.apache.hbase.thirdparty.com.google.common.util.concurrent.ThreadFactoryBuilder;
 
 @InterfaceAudience.Private
-class TestingHBaseClusterImpl implements TestingHBaseCluster {
+class TestingHBaseClusterImpl implements ServerTestingHBaseCluster {
 
   private final HBaseTestingUtil util = new HBaseTestingUtil();
 
@@ -55,6 +55,10 @@ public Configuration getConf() {
     return util.getConfiguration();
   }
 
+  public HBaseTestingUtil getUtil() {
+    return util;
+  }
+
   private int getRegionServerIndex(ServerName serverName) {
     // we have a small number of region servers, this should be fine for now.
     List<RegionServerThread> servers = util.getMiniHBaseCluster().getRegionServerThreads();
diff --git a/hbase-zookeeper/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseZKTestingUtil.java b/hbase-zookeeper/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseZKTestingUtil.java
index acc5f144beca..b4fa9486959d 100644
--- a/hbase-zookeeper/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseZKTestingUtil.java
+++ b/hbase-zookeeper/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HBaseZKTestingUtil.java
@@ -30,7 +30,9 @@
  * Helpers for testing HBase that do not depend on specific server/etc. things. The main difference
  * from {@link HBaseCommonTestingUtil} is that we can start a zookeeper cluster.
  */
-@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate(HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX)
+@InterfaceAudience.LimitedPrivate({HBaseInterfaceAudience.COPROC,
+  HBaseInterfaceAudience.REPLICATION,
+  HBaseInterfaceAudience.PHOENIX})
 @InterfaceStability.Evolving
 public class HBaseZKTestingUtil extends HBaseCommonTestingUtil {
   private MiniZooKeeperCluster zkCluster;