diff --git a/doc/Changelog b/doc/Changelog
index 84db052..8c11523 100644
--- a/doc/Changelog
+++ b/doc/Changelog
@@ -67,6 +67,10 @@ sysvinit (2.89dsf) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
   * Define _XOPEN_SOURCE when building to get crypt() from <unistd.h>
     instead of using <crypt.h> in sulogin.c, to get the source building
     with the musl C library.
+  * Use sysconf(_SC_SYMLOOP_MAX) instead of MAXSYMLINKS.  If sysconf
+    returns an error, fall back to MAXSYMLINKS on platforms that
+    define it.  Fixes build on Hurd.  Patch from Justus Winter and
+    Debian.
 
  -- Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>  Sun Apr 11 11:28:55 CEST 2010
 
diff --git a/src/killall5.c b/src/killall5.c
index 54176c3..3bb6f9d 100644
--- a/src/killall5.c
+++ b/src/killall5.c
@@ -376,6 +376,19 @@ out:
 	return 0;
 }
 
+/*
+ *     Get the maximal number of symlinks to follow.
+ */
+static int maxsymlinks(void)
+{
+	int v = sysconf(_SC_SYMLOOP_MAX);
+#ifdef MAXSYMLINKS
+	if (v == -1)
+		return MAXSYMLINKS;
+#endif
+	return v;
+}
+
 /*
  *     Check path is located on a network based partition.
  */
@@ -383,7 +396,7 @@ int check4nfs(const char * path, char * real)
 {
 	char buf[PATH_MAX+1];
 	const char *curr;
-	int deep = MAXSYMLINKS;
+	int deep = maxsymlinks();
 
 	if (!nlist) return 0;