diff --git a/autotest.sh b/autotest.sh
index 4020553ef5..554b8e3fb6 100755
--- a/autotest.sh
+++ b/autotest.sh
@@ -152,11 +152,6 @@ timing_enter afterboot
 timing_exit afterboot
 
 if [[ $SPDK_TEST_CRYPTO -eq 1 || $SPDK_TEST_REDUCE -eq 1 ]]; then
-	# Make sure that memory is distributed across all NUMA nodes - by default, all goes to
-	# node0, but if QAT devices are attached to a different node, all of their VFs will end
-	# up under that node too and memory needs to be available there for the tests.
-	CLEAR_HUGE=yes HUGE_EVEN_ALLOC=yes ./scripts/setup.sh
-	./scripts/setup.sh status
 	if [[ $SPDK_TEST_USE_IGB_UIO -eq 1 ]]; then
 		./scripts/qat_setup.sh igb_uio
 	else
diff --git a/test/common/autotest_common.sh b/test/common/autotest_common.sh
index 61970afc14..9f215f9506 100755
--- a/test/common/autotest_common.sh
+++ b/test/common/autotest_common.sh
@@ -221,10 +221,16 @@ if [ $SPDK_RUN_VALGRIND -eq 0 ]; then
 fi
 
 if [ "$(uname -s)" = "Linux" ]; then
+	export HUGEMEM=4096 CLEAR_HUGE=yes
+	if [[ $SPDK_TEST_CRYPTO -eq 1 || $SPDK_TEST_REDUCE -eq 1 ]]; then
+		# Make sure that memory is distributed across all NUMA nodes - by default, all goes to
+		# node0, but if QAT devices are attached to a different node, all of their VFs will end
+		# up under that node too and memory needs to be available there for the tests.
+		export HUGE_EVEN_ALLOC=yes
+	fi
+
 	MAKE="make"
 	MAKEFLAGS=${MAKEFLAGS:--j$(nproc)}
-	# Override the default HUGEMEM in scripts/setup.sh to allocate 8GB in hugepages.
-	export HUGEMEM=8192
 	if [[ $SPDK_TEST_USE_IGB_UIO -eq 1 ]]; then
 		export DRIVER_OVERRIDE=igb_uio
 		# Building kernel modules requires root privileges
diff --git a/test/setup/hugepages.sh b/test/setup/hugepages.sh
index fd6eb699af..59cd46b4c8 100755
--- a/test/setup/hugepages.sh
+++ b/test/setup/hugepages.sh
@@ -15,6 +15,12 @@ default_huges=$(get_meminfo Hugepagesize)
 default_huge_nr=/sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-${default_huges}kB/nr_hugepages
 global_huge_nr=/proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages
 
+# Make sure environment doesn't affect the tests
+unset -v HUGE_EVEN_ALLOC
+unset -v HUGEMEM
+unset -v HUGENODE
+unset -v NRHUGE
+
 get_nodes() {
 	local node
 
@@ -104,8 +110,8 @@ verify_nr_hugepages() {
 
 # Test cases
 default_setup() {
-	# Default HUGEMEM (8G) alloc on node0
-	get_test_nr_hugepages $((HUGEMEM * 1024)) 0
+	# Default HUGEMEM (2G) alloc on node0
+	get_test_nr_hugepages $((2048 * 1024)) 0
 	setup
 	verify_nr_hugepages
 }
diff --git a/test/spdkcli/common.sh b/test/spdkcli/common.sh
index fec6d04973..42fad0858e 100644
--- a/test/spdkcli/common.sh
+++ b/test/spdkcli/common.sh
@@ -43,3 +43,6 @@ function check_match() {
 	$rootdir/test/app/match/match $testdir/match_files/${MATCH_FILE}.match
 	rm -f $testdir/match_files/${MATCH_FILE}
 }
+
+# Allocate 5GB of hugepages to have some overhead for run_*()s
+HUGEMEM=5120 CLEAR_HUGE=yes "$rootdir/scripts/setup.sh"