diff --git a/man2/getrlimit.2 b/man2/getrlimit.2
index ca25413ca..b02e79871 100644
--- a/man2/getrlimit.2
+++ b/man2/getrlimit.2
@@ -487,8 +487,10 @@ An unprivileged process tried to raise the hard limit; the
 capability is required to do this.
 Or, the caller tried to increase the hard
 .B RLIMIT_NOFILE
-limit above the current kernel maximum
-.RB ( NR_OPEN ).
+limit above the maximum defined by
+.IR /proc/sys/fs/nr_open
+(see
+.BR proc (5))
 Or, the calling process did not have permission to set limits
 for the process specified by
 .IR pid .