diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index c7e9956dd40..3d2675c1e91 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -347,6 +347,9 @@ Release 2.4.1 - UNRELEASED
     HDFS-6198. DataNode rolling upgrade does not correctly identify current
     block pool directory and replace with trash on Windows. (cnauroth)
 
+    HDFS-6206. Fix NullPointerException in DFSUtil.substituteForWildcardAddress.
+    (szetszwo) 
+
 Release 2.4.0 - 2014-04-07 
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DFSUtil.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DFSUtil.java
index 1c930de9bee..347237bea6e 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DFSUtil.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/DFSUtil.java
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ import static org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.DFSConfigKeys.DFS_NAMESERVICE_ID;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.PrintStream;
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
+import java.net.InetAddress;
 import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
 import java.net.URI;
 import java.net.URISyntaxException;
@@ -1100,7 +1101,8 @@ public class DFSUtil {
     InetSocketAddress sockAddr = NetUtils.createSocketAddr(configuredAddress);
     InetSocketAddress defaultSockAddr = NetUtils.createSocketAddr(defaultHost
         + ":0");
-    if (sockAddr.getAddress().isAnyLocalAddress()) {
+    final InetAddress addr = sockAddr.getAddress();
+    if (addr != null && addr.isAnyLocalAddress()) {
       if (UserGroupInformation.isSecurityEnabled() &&
           defaultSockAddr.getAddress().isAnyLocalAddress()) {
         throw new IOException("Cannot use a wildcard address with security. " +