CVS Client on VMS 7.3-1 and SSH

[Roger Yanda]

I'm using ssh on VMS to connect to a Linux box that has Concurrent
Versions System (CVS) 1.11.20 (client/server)[

The VMS side has Concurrent Versions System (CVS) 1.11.20 (client)

When I do a connect, I get the following error 

$ cvs co smile
cvs [checkout aborted]: can't set close-on-exec flag on 3: bad file number
$ 

Can someone who has more insight into the CVS code point me to which
files I may need to patch to get this connection to work?

I may have to re-compile with debug options, then run under the debugger. 
Before I go to that depth, I though I'd see if anyone had any suggestions.

Thanks,

-Roger