To read files out of your repository via SSH, set your CVSROOT variable to something like this:
export CVSROOT=":ext:login-name@host//cvs/path/root"
What tells CVSROOT that it will get the data from an external host is the <em>:ext:</em> at the start of the URL.
The <em>login-name</em> is your name or whoever's login name you can use to connect to the computer.
It is assumed that you can already connect with SSH.