diff --git a/src/bin/pg_basebackup/t/010_pg_basebackup.pl b/src/bin/pg_basebackup/t/010_pg_basebackup.pl
index a06690bf74..5ac2ba1b17 100644
--- a/src/bin/pg_basebackup/t/010_pg_basebackup.pl
+++ b/src/bin/pg_basebackup/t/010_pg_basebackup.pl
@@ -339,19 +339,20 @@ umask(0027);
 # Enable group permissions on PGDATA
 chmod_recursive("$pgdata", 0750, 0640);
 
-rename("$pgdata/pg_replslot", "$tempdir/pg_replslot")
+# Create a temporary directory in the system location.
+my $sys_tempdir = PostgreSQL::Test::Utils::tempdir_short;
+
+rename("$pgdata/pg_replslot", "$sys_tempdir/pg_replslot")
   or BAIL_OUT "could not move $pgdata/pg_replslot";
-dir_symlink("$tempdir/pg_replslot", "$pgdata/pg_replslot")
+dir_symlink("$sys_tempdir/pg_replslot", "$pgdata/pg_replslot")
   or BAIL_OUT "could not symlink to $pgdata/pg_replslot";
 
 $node->start;
 
 # Test backup of a tablespace using tar format.
-# Create a temporary directory in the system location and symlink it
-# to our physical temp location.  That way we can use shorter names
-# for the tablespace directories, which hopefully won't run afoul of
-# the 99 character length limit.
-my $sys_tempdir = PostgreSQL::Test::Utils::tempdir_short;
+# Symlink the system located tempdir to our physical temp location.
+# That way we can use shorter names for the tablespace directories,
+# which hopefully won't run afoul of the 99 character length limit.
 my $real_sys_tempdir = "$sys_tempdir/tempdir";
 dir_symlink "$tempdir", $real_sys_tempdir;