debian: cvs server giving permission denied

[Brendan J Simon <brendan.simon@bigpond.com>]

I've got a CVS server on a PowerMac running Debian GNU Linux (stable).  
I can checkout from the repository but I can not do simple operations 
like status or update.  This only happens when performing these 
operations on directories with subdirectories (excluding CVS).  Is this 
a known problem and how do I solve it.

Thanks,
Brendan Simon.