diff --git a/net/sunrpc/auth_gss/auth_gss_internal.h b/net/sunrpc/auth_gss/auth_gss_internal.h
index c5603242b54bf8..f6d9631bd9d001 100644
--- a/net/sunrpc/auth_gss/auth_gss_internal.h
+++ b/net/sunrpc/auth_gss/auth_gss_internal.h
@@ -34,9 +34,12 @@ simple_get_netobj(const void *p, const void *end, struct xdr_netobj *dest)
 	q = (const void *)((const char *)p + len);
 	if (unlikely(q > end || q < p))
 		return ERR_PTR(-EFAULT);
-	dest->data = kmemdup(p, len, GFP_NOFS);
-	if (unlikely(dest->data == NULL))
-		return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
+	if (len) {
+		dest->data = kmemdup(p, len, GFP_NOFS);
+		if (unlikely(dest->data == NULL))
+			return ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM);
+	} else
+		dest->data = NULL;
 	dest->len = len;
 	return q;
 }