Downloading Source From CVS Behind a Firewall

Some problems are a real nuisance and get under my skin until I've solved them. In my case,
I couldn't reach CVS servers out on the internet.
Trying to get project source code from SourceForge was genuinely frustrating. I don't know if it was
a technical limitation of our VPN or if one of our admins couldn't or wouldn't set it up, but I no longer care.

That mecca for open-source developers happens to host a project called CVSGrab. Think of it
as a CVS client that uses the web interface
instead of the CVS protocol. CVSGrab can download any CVS repository exposed
over the web through ViewCVS (0.7, 0.8, 0.9.2, 1.0),
SourceCast (1.0, 2.0, 3.0),
CvsWeb (1.0, 2.0, 3.0), Chora (2.0) or FishEye 0.8.

Since most CVS projects offer a public web interface, usually through ViewCVS, it's easy to download them with CVSGrab. All you need to run it is Java (a JRE). You can start it from the command line or from an Ant script.