diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
index 18c354c8289..8d875eba3d6 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/CHANGES.txt
@@ -131,6 +131,8 @@ Trunk (unreleased changes)
 
     HDFS-3851. DFSOutputStream class code cleanup. (Jing Zhao via suresh)
 
+    HDFS-2580. NameNode#main(...) can make use of GenericOptionsParser. (harsh)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
   BUG FIXES
diff --git a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNode.java b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNode.java
index c1bca3b45b2..6ff3e1def28 100644
--- a/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNode.java
+++ b/hadoop-hdfs-project/hadoop-hdfs/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hdfs/server/namenode/NameNode.java
@@ -73,6 +73,7 @@ import org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation;
 import org.apache.hadoop.security.authorize.RefreshAuthorizationPolicyProtocol;
 import org.apache.hadoop.tools.GetUserMappingsProtocol;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.ExitUtil.ExitException;
+import org.apache.hadoop.util.GenericOptionsParser;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.ServicePlugin;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.StringUtils;
 
@@ -1056,6 +1057,10 @@ public class NameNode {
       throws IOException {
     if (conf == null)
       conf = new HdfsConfiguration();
+    // Parse out some generic args into Configuration.
+    GenericOptionsParser hParser = new GenericOptionsParser(conf, argv);
+    argv = hParser.getRemainingArgs();
+    // Parse the rest, NN specific args.
     StartupOption startOpt = parseArguments(argv);
     if (startOpt == null) {
       printUsage(System.err);