diff --git a/arch/mips/Kconfig b/arch/mips/Kconfig
index 218aa67a2c52..71683a853372 100644
--- a/arch/mips/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/mips/Kconfig
@@ -2736,6 +2736,20 @@ choice
 		help
 		  Do not enable appended dtb support.
 
+	config MIPS_ELF_APPENDED_DTB
+		bool "vmlinux"
+		help
+		  With this option, the boot code will look for a device tree binary
+		  DTB) included in the vmlinux ELF section .appended_dtb. By default
+		  it is empty and the DTB can be appended using binutils command
+		  objcopy:
+
+		    objcopy --update-section .appended_dtb=<filename>.dtb vmlinux
+
+		  This is meant as a backward compatiblity convenience for those
+		  systems with a bootloader that can't be upgraded to accommodate
+		  the documented boot protocol using a device tree.
+
 	config MIPS_RAW_APPENDED_DTB
 		bool "vmlinux.bin"
 		help
diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c b/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
index 6f142ee4a086..66aac55df349 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
@@ -39,6 +39,10 @@
 #include <asm/smp-ops.h>
 #include <asm/prom.h>
 
+#ifdef CONFIG_MIPS_ELF_APPENDED_DTB
+const char __section(.appended_dtb) __appended_dtb[0x100000];
+#endif /* CONFIG_MIPS_ELF_APPENDED_DTB */
+
 struct cpuinfo_mips cpu_data[NR_CPUS] __read_mostly;
 
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(cpu_data);
diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S b/arch/mips/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
index 07d32a4aea60..f4c23d9023be 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
@@ -132,6 +132,11 @@ SECTIONS
 	__appended_dtb = .;
 	/* leave space for appended DTB */
 	. += 0x100000;
+#elif defined(CONFIG_MIPS_ELF_APPENDED_DTB)
+	.appended_dtb : AT(ADDR(.appended_dtb) - LOAD_OFFSET) {
+		*(.appended_dtb)
+		KEEP(*(.appended_dtb))
+	}
 #endif
 	/*
 	 * Align to 64K in attempt to eliminate holes before the