diff --git a/deepspeed/launcher/multinode_runner.py b/deepspeed/launcher/multinode_runner.py
index 730146f5bcd2..07c70f3cc6c5 100644
--- a/deepspeed/launcher/multinode_runner.py
+++ b/deepspeed/launcher/multinode_runner.py
@@ -56,13 +56,21 @@ def __init__(self, args, world_info_base64):
     def backend_exists(self):
         return shutil.which('pdsh')
 
+    def parse_user_args(self):
+        processed_args = []
+        for arg in self.args.user_args:
+            # With pdsh, if we are passing a string as an argument, it will get
+            # split on whitespace. To avoid this and support strings that
+            # contain '"', we do this extra processing step:
+            if " " in arg:
+                arg = '"{}"'.format(arg.replace('"', '\\"'))
+            processed_args.append(arg)
+        return processed_args
+
     @property
     def name(self):
         return "pdsh"
 
-    def parse_user_args(self):
-        return list(map(lambda x: x if x.startswith("-") else f"'{x}'", self.args.user_args))
-
     def get_cmd(self, environment, active_resources):
         environment['PDSH_RCMD_TYPE'] = 'ssh'
         if self.args.ssh_port is not None:  # only specify ssh port if it is specified
diff --git a/deepspeed/launcher/runner.py b/deepspeed/launcher/runner.py
index a7fa2b5053e5..4f45e1831b48 100755
--- a/deepspeed/launcher/runner.py
+++ b/deepspeed/launcher/runner.py
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@
 import os
 import re
 import sys
-import shlex
 import json
 import base64
 import argparse
@@ -389,9 +388,6 @@ def parse_num_nodes(str_num_nodes: str, elastic_training: bool):
 def main(args=None):
     args = parse_args(args)
 
-    # For when argparse interprets remaining args as a single string
-    args.user_args = shlex.split(" ".join(list(map(lambda x: x if x.startswith("-") else f'"{x}"', args.user_args))))
-
     if args.elastic_training:
         assert args.master_addr != "", "Master Addr is required when elastic training is enabled"
 
@@ -447,7 +443,11 @@ def main(args=None):
     if not args.master_addr:
         assert multi_node_exec
         first_host = list(active_resources.keys())[0]
-        hostname_cmd = [f"ssh {first_host} hostname -I"]
+        ssh_check_cmd = "ssh "
+        if args.ssh_port is not None:
+            ssh_check_cmd += f" -p {args.ssh_port}"
+        ssh_check_cmd += f" {first_host} hostname -I"
+        hostname_cmd = [ssh_check_cmd]
         try:
             result = subprocess.check_output(hostname_cmd, shell=True)
         except subprocess.CalledProcessError as err:
diff --git a/deepspeed/module_inject/auto_tp.py b/deepspeed/module_inject/auto_tp.py
index 6f545d4cb13b..b9a726bec67f 100644
--- a/deepspeed/module_inject/auto_tp.py
+++ b/deepspeed/module_inject/auto_tp.py
@@ -121,7 +121,9 @@ class Loading():
 
     def is_load_module(module):
         load_layers = [nn.Linear, nn.Embedding, nn.LayerNorm]
-        load_layer_names = ["LPLayerNorm", "SharedEmbedding", "OPTLearnedPositionalEmbedding", "LlamaRMSNorm"]
+        load_layer_names = [
+            "LPLayerNorm", "SharedEmbedding", "OPTLearnedPositionalEmbedding", "LlamaRMSNorm", "FalconLinear"
+        ]
         return module.__class__ in load_layers or module._get_name() in load_layer_names
 
     def load_buffer(module, state_dict, prefix):
diff --git a/deepspeed/runtime/engine.py b/deepspeed/runtime/engine.py
index 44b44c79ba55..c5f4d3e6530d 100644
--- a/deepspeed/runtime/engine.py
+++ b/deepspeed/runtime/engine.py
@@ -232,9 +232,6 @@ def __init__(
         # for debug purposes - can then debug print: debug_get_module_name(module)
         debug_extract_module_and_param_names(model)
 
-        # needed for zero_to_fp32 weights reconstruction to remap nameless data to state_dict
-        self.param_names = {param: name for name, param in model.named_parameters()}
-
         self._do_args_sanity_check(args)
         self._configure_with_arguments(args, mpu)
         self._do_sanity_check()
@@ -261,6 +258,9 @@ def __init__(
         # Configure distributed model
         self._configure_distributed_model(model)
 
+        # needed for zero_to_fp32 weights reconstruction to remap nameless data to state_dict
+        self.param_names = {param: name for name, param in model.named_parameters()}
+
         self._get_model_parameters()
 
         see_memory_usage(f"DeepSpeed Engine: After configure distributed model")
diff --git a/tests/unit/launcher/test_user_args.py b/tests/unit/launcher/test_user_args.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..99afd0f2cfa7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/unit/launcher/test_user_args.py
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+# Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+# DeepSpeed Team
+
+import pytest
+import subprocess
+
+from deepspeed.accelerator import get_accelerator
+
+if not get_accelerator().is_available():
+    pytest.skip("only supported in accelerator environments.", allow_module_level=True)
+
+user_arg_test_script = """import argparse
+parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+parser.add_argument("--prompt", type=str)
+parser.add_argument("--local_rank", type=int, default=0)
+parser.add_argument("--world_size", type=int, default=1)
+args = parser.parse_args()
+print("ARG PARSE SUCCESS")
+"""
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(scope="function")
+def user_script_fp(tmpdir):
+    script_fp = tmpdir.join("user_arg_test.py")
+    with open(script_fp, "w") as f:
+        f.write(user_arg_test_script)
+    return script_fp
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(scope="function")
+def cmd(user_script_fp, prompt, multi_node):
+    if multi_node:
+        cmd = ("deepspeed", "--force_multi", "--num_nodes", "1", "--num_gpus", "1", user_script_fp, "--prompt", prompt)
+    else:
+        cmd = ("deepspeed", "--num_nodes", "1", "--num_gpus", "1", user_script_fp, "--prompt", prompt)
+    return cmd
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("prompt", [
+    '''"I am 6' tall"''', """'I am 72" tall'""", """'"translate English to Romanian: "'""",
+    '''I'm going to tell them "DeepSpeed is the best"'''
+])
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("multi_node", [True, False])
+def test_user_args(cmd):
+    p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
+    out, err = p.communicate()
+    assert "ARG PARSE SUCCESS" in out.decode("utf-8"), f"User args not parsed correctly: {err.decode('utf-8')}"
+
+
+def test_bash_string_args(tmpdir, user_script_fp):
+    bash_script = f"""
+    ARGS="--prompt 'DeepSpeed is the best'"
+    echo ${{ARGS}}|xargs deepspeed --num_nodes 1 --num_gpus 1 {user_script_fp}
+    """
+
+    bash_fp = tmpdir.join("bash_script.sh")
+    with open(bash_fp, "w") as f:
+        f.write(bash_script)
+
+    p = subprocess.Popen(["bash", bash_fp], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
+    out, err = p.communicate()
+    assert "ARG PARSE SUCCESS" in out.decode("utf-8"), f"User args not parsed correctly: {err.decode('utf-8')}"