[system test] unable to unmarshall response body. Buf = 401 Unauthorized on indexer, on startup of indexer service on a cluster node

Indexer logs are filled with messages like below.
Note the indexer is enabled as a service, but there are no active indexes build using gsi on this cluster.

2015-04-16T11:18:43.886Z-07:00 [Debug] convertResponse: unable to unmarshall response body. Buf = 401 Unauthorized
, err invalid character 'U' after top-level value
2015-04-16T11:18:43.886Z-07:00 [Debug] RequestHandler::handleIndexStatusRequest: err Fail to retrieve local metadata from url 10.6.2.164:9102.
2015-04-16T11:18:43.886Z-07:00 [Debug] RequestHandler::sendResponse: sending response back to caller.

{"code":"error","error":"Fail to retrieve cluster-wide metadata from index service"}

2015-04-16T11:18:49.728Z-07:00 [Debug] convertResponse: unable to unmarshall response body. Buf = 401 Unauthorized
, err invalid character 'U' after top-level value
2015-04-16T11:18:49.728Z-07:00 [Debug] RequestHandler::handleIndexStatusRequest: err Fail to retrieve local metadata from url 10.6.2.164:9102.
2015-04-16T11:18:49.728Z-07:00 [Debug] RequestHandler::sendResponse: sending response back to caller.

{"code":"error","error":"Fail to retrieve cluster-wide metadata from index service"}

attaching logs.