Building an ISO for CD release of a custom FreeBSD 5.4

[Jonathan Beit-Aharon]

Hi,
I ported/upgraded our custom FreeBSD (custom kernel, security patches, 
etc.) from 4.9-stable to 5.4-stable, and have downloaded and built all 
the ports we need.

I want to provide this already-built system for use in our QA lab and by 
other developers, so I'm attempting to build a bootable CD that captures it.

Since I have never done this before, I read the fine manual (man build 
and man release), and some articles that came up when I searched for 
various combinations of {freebsd, release, make, iso, isos, custom, cd, 
and cdrom}, and tried to follow their examples.   It isn't easy, because 
the documentation of MAKE_ISOS and NOPORTS is rather incomplete.

I tried the following:

    cd /usr/src/release
    make release CHROOTDIR=/usr/v54export BUILDNAME=FBSD54_050712 
RELEASETAG=RELENG_5 \
        CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs at anoncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs 
EXTSRCDIR=/usr/src \
        MAKE_ISOS=/usr/v54export COMPAT_DISTS=compat4x 
OTHER_DISTS=manpages \
        NOPORTS=YES

It complained that the connection to the CVS repository is being 
refused.  I tried changing the CVSROOT to :pserver:freebsdanoncvs at ... 
but that and several other protocol variations didn't help.   I can't 
see why -- does anyone know/care?   Is there a simple way to overcome 
this obstacle (is the documentation wrong/typo'ed)?

I tried to "cvs import" /usr/src into /usr/v54cvs and then specify the 
CVSROOT as /usr/v54cvs.   Here is the tail of 'script' capture of that 
build:

    cvs checkout: Updating ports/lang/perl5.8/files^M
    rm -rf /usr/v54export/usr/doc^M
    cd /usr/v54export/usr &&  cvs -R  -d /usr/v54cvs  co  -P doc^M
    cvs checkout: Updating doc^M
    if [ -d /usr/src/release/../../ports/distfiles/ ]; then  cp -rp
    /usr/src/release/../../ports/distfiles 
    /usr/v54export/usr/ports/distfiles;  else  mkdir -p
    /usr/v54export/usr/ports/distfiles;  fi^M
    make: don't know how to make checksum-recursive. Stop^M
    *** Error code 2^M
    ^M
    Stop in /usr/src/release.^M
    *** Error code 1^M
    ^M
    Stop in /usr/src/release.^M
    # exit ^M

Well, at least this "checksum-recursive" thing is new -- can you help me 
overcome it?

Am I doing something so wrong I don't even know how to ask the right 
question(s)?   If so, please be so kind as to point me in the right 
direction.

Desperate (not yet sleepless, but close) in Waltham,
Jonathan