diff --git a/net/netlink/af_netlink.c b/net/netlink/af_netlink.c
index 9db8bab27fa2..c2d585c4f7c5 100644
--- a/net/netlink/af_netlink.c
+++ b/net/netlink/af_netlink.c
@@ -2343,6 +2343,11 @@ static int netlink_recvmsg(struct kiocb *kiocb, struct socket *sock,
 	}
 #endif
 
+	/* Record the max length of recvmsg() calls for future allocations */
+	nlk->max_recvmsg_len = max(nlk->max_recvmsg_len, len);
+	nlk->max_recvmsg_len = min_t(size_t, nlk->max_recvmsg_len,
+				     16384);
+
 	copied = data_skb->len;
 	if (len < copied) {
 		msg->msg_flags |= MSG_TRUNC;
@@ -2587,7 +2592,27 @@ static int netlink_dump(struct sock *sk)
 	if (!netlink_rx_is_mmaped(sk) &&
 	    atomic_read(&sk->sk_rmem_alloc) >= sk->sk_rcvbuf)
 		goto errout_skb;
-	skb = netlink_alloc_skb(sk, alloc_size, nlk->portid, GFP_KERNEL);
+
+	/* NLMSG_GOODSIZE is small to avoid high order allocations being
+	 * required, but it makes sense to _attempt_ a 16K bytes allocation
+	 * to reduce number of system calls on dump operations, if user
+	 * ever provided a big enough buffer.
+	 */
+	if (alloc_size < nlk->max_recvmsg_len) {
+		skb = netlink_alloc_skb(sk,
+					nlk->max_recvmsg_len,
+					nlk->portid,
+					GFP_KERNEL |
+					__GFP_NOWARN |
+					__GFP_NORETRY);
+		/* available room should be exact amount to avoid MSG_TRUNC */
+		if (skb)
+			skb_reserve(skb, skb_tailroom(skb) -
+					 nlk->max_recvmsg_len);
+	}
+	if (!skb)
+		skb = netlink_alloc_skb(sk, alloc_size, nlk->portid,
+					GFP_KERNEL);
 	if (!skb)
 		goto errout_skb;
 	netlink_skb_set_owner_r(skb, sk);
diff --git a/net/netlink/af_netlink.h b/net/netlink/af_netlink.h
index acbd774eeb7c..ed13a790b00e 100644
--- a/net/netlink/af_netlink.h
+++ b/net/netlink/af_netlink.h
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ struct netlink_sock {
 	u32			ngroups;
 	unsigned long		*groups;
 	unsigned long		state;
+	size_t			max_recvmsg_len;
 	wait_queue_head_t	wait;
 	bool			cb_running;
 	struct netlink_callback	cb;