[cvsnt] Locking out specific projects...

[Lehman, Curtis]

I tried searching the news groups but couldn't find any specific help to my
problem. How can I lock down a specific project from anyone doing a
checkout, update, or commit command.  I am working on a code base that is
very large, 20K plus files. I am using the import command to import and
merge changes from a vender. To get the venders changes I do the sequence:
 
1. cvs import -I  project branch new_import_tag
2. cvs checkout -j old_import_tag -j new_import_tag
3. ....resolve conflicts....
4. cvs commit changes.
 
In-between steps 1 and 4 could be several hours, but after step one the code
base will be broken until step 4 is done. How can I lock out all the users
from checking out or committing changes to the project?  I don't want to
stop the CVS service on the server because that blocks the other unrelated
projects in the company from continuing to use CVS. I thought about writing
a pearl script to call from one of the CVSROOT files like commitinfo, but
that doesn't stop the checkout. Any suggestions? 
 
Thanks,

Curtis