Problem
You want to use cvs to checkout a repository from a remote server.

Solution
If you were using subversion it would be very simple to do by using the remote url.
In CVS you have to to do the following:
First find out where the cvsroot in the remote server is. We will assume for this example that is located in /usr/local/cvsroot.
Then run the following on your local linux pc:

export CVSROOT=:ext:user_name@remote_pc:/path_to_csvroot export
export CVS_RSH=ssh

You then should be able to do a checkout by typing the following and supplying your password:

cvs checkout project_name