Gentoo users can emerge cups. Take note of where CUPS installs its backend files. This may be /usr/lib/cups/backend, /usr/local/lib/cups/backend, /usr/libexec/cups/backend (the default directory under Gentoo), or some other directory.

First, you need Perl and OpenSSH, but if you have Linux, you're pretty much guaranteed to have them. You also need the Perl module Expect.pm, which you can get with cpan or, under Gentoo, with emerge Expect (note the capital E). Now download SSHLPD, and as root, copy it to the CUPS backend directory. Also, issue the command chmod 755 sshlpd on the file to make it executable. Finally, you'll need to save your password to a file for sshlpd. Create the directory /etc/sshpassword/, and in it create a file of the form username@unix.cis.pitt.edu, where username is your Pitt username. The file should contain one line, the password for your Pitt account. So that no one else can read your password, change the owner of the file to the username used by CUPS (lp on Gentoo) and change the permissions to 0600. If you don't know the CUPS username, change the file owner to root and the permissions to 0600 and look for the error message in the log file (see Troubleshooting below for how to set up logging) when you try to print. The error message will tell you the proper username.

Under Gentoo, you can run /etc/init.d/cupsd start, and, to make it start whenever your computer boots, rc-update add cupsd default.

Really, you could do this from the command line, but I have barely used CUPS, so I don't feel qualified to give advice about its command‐line interface. The web interface is probably located at http://localhost:631/. If not, check your CUPS config file, which is probably /etc/cups/cupsd.conf or something similar, for a line like Listen localhost:631 for the proper address.

• Click Add Printer.
• Fill in anything you'd like for Name, Location, and Description. I'd suggest a short name like "CL" for Name and something like "Cathedral of Learning" for Location and Description. Then press Continue.
• For Device, choose LPD over SSH Login. Press Continue.
• For the URL, you want sshlpd://username@unix.cis.pitt.edu/xxx, where username is your Pitt username and xxx is the printer name taken from one of the printer‐name lists below. Press Continue.
• Choose Generic for the make of your printer, and press Continue.
• Select "Generic PostScript Printer Foomatic/Postscript (recommended) (en)" as the printer type. (You do not need to install a separate Foomatic package for this driver to exist (at least, not under Gentoo).) Press Add Printer.
• You will probably be prompted for a username and password. Your root username and password should work. (This is not asking for the username you use to log in to unixs.)
• You may be prompted for Print Options. If not, you may click on the printer name to bring up its page and then click "Set Printer Options." Page Size is US Letter. Double‐Sided Printing you can turn on if you like; you may also be able to turn it on from the Print Options of the program you are printing from if you want it. Everything else should be fine. Press the Set Printer Options button in the General section once you've made the paper‐size change.
• Click on the printer name when the web interface tells you it has been configured.
• You may try Print Test Page if you'd like; if it works, you're set. It most likely will not work yet, but there are probably only a few simple adjustments required. The sshlpd script can tell you in more detail what those adjustments are, so check out the Troubleshooting section below to find out how to see its output.