diff --git a/libexec/rc/rc b/libexec/rc/rc
index 722d7fe35884..b5bc188fc7c0 100644
--- a/libexec/rc/rc
+++ b/libexec/rc/rc
@@ -119,6 +119,7 @@ for _rc_group in ${files}; do
 done
 
 unset files local_rc
+unset IFS
 
 # Now that disks are mounted, for each dir in $local_startup
 # search for init scripts that use the new rc.d semantics.