cvs commit as root

[Harry Putnam]

Setup: OS   = Redhat Linux 7.1
       CVS  = Concurrent Versions System (CVS) 1.11.1p1
       (client/server) 
Standalone home user situation

I'd like to override the taboo on committing as root. I imagine it is
possible but not clear how to do it.

On my setup, I use cvs as much for having version control of host
config files as for software devel, maybe more.

Keeping many basic config files under cvs control:
fstab hosts syslog.conf logrotate.conf
profile sendmail.cf  etc etc. Most of the important configs.  

Currently doing this by symlinking to file in a checked out module
containing the actual files.  And periodically `cvs commit'.
So, it is symlinks in the file sytem at /etc/whatever and the real
files are in the checked out module.

Many of those files need to have root only permissions and ownership.
The symlinks ownership  doesn't count for anything under linux.  Only
the actual files ownership/permissions.

However, cvs doesn't want me to commit as root.  So even when
committing non root owned files (as user), I run into errors if any
root owned files are scanned or need to be committed.

Errors crop up in updating and committing.  Maybe other activities
too.

At first I thought, well just chown -R $USER:$USER the module. But,
that seems like a bad move to set the checked out module to be owned by
user even though this is a stand alone home use host.  Some important
files still should be root owned.  Seems not to be acceptable to cvs
though.

Its already somewhat troublesome keeping all this stuff in cvs.  I
really don't want to have to mess around any more than needed when
committing and updating.  It happens too often to have unneeded
complications.

So how can I override this behavior?