diff --git a/[refs] b/[refs]
index 01e8e94da62c..0c1f1c872553 100644
--- a/[refs]
+++ b/[refs]
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 ---
-refs/heads/master: 927ccbcc28dceee29dad876982768cca29738564
+refs/heads/master: a42827b71b87fc9816d2f58626e825b0eb500efe
diff --git a/trunk/net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c b/trunk/net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c
index 578e4fe40945..84efffdbade3 100644
--- a/trunk/net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c
+++ b/trunk/net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c
@@ -163,17 +163,16 @@ nfnetlink_check_attributes(struct nfnetlink_subsystem *subsys,
 			cb_id, subsys->cb_count);
 		return -EINVAL;
 	}
-	
-	attr_count = subsys->cb[cb_id].attr_count;
-
-	memset(cda, 0, sizeof(struct nfattr *) * attr_count);
 
-	/* check attribute lengths. */
 	min_len = NLMSG_ALIGN(sizeof(struct nfgenmsg));
-	if (nlh->nlmsg_len < min_len)
+	if (unlikely(nlh->nlmsg_len < min_len))
 		return -EINVAL;
 
-	if (nlh->nlmsg_len > min_len) {
+	attr_count = subsys->cb[cb_id].attr_count;
+	memset(cda, 0, sizeof(struct nfattr *) * attr_count);
+
+	/* check attribute lengths. */
+	if (likely(nlh->nlmsg_len > min_len)) {
 		struct nfattr *attr = NFM_NFA(NLMSG_DATA(nlh));
 		int attrlen = nlh->nlmsg_len - NLMSG_ALIGN(min_len);
 
@@ -186,8 +185,10 @@ nfnetlink_check_attributes(struct nfnetlink_subsystem *subsys,
 			}
 			attr = NFA_NEXT(attr, attrlen);
 		}
-	} else
-		return -EINVAL;
+	}
+
+	/* implicit: if nlmsg_len == min_len, we return 0, and an empty
+	 * (zeroed) cda[] array. The message is valid, but empty. */
 
         return 0;
 }