A little help setting up for SSH keys and connecting via SSL/TLS connections for FTPS

Concepts

This stuff is all new to me too so here's some notes on what i think I have understood so far, I think that instruction might mean use sftp or ftps instead of standard unencrypted ftp, which you already are by the looks of it tribe_of_dan.

I tend to think of it as running the ssh-keygen command on my local machine provides a key and a lock (I'm lazy and don't use the -t rsa argument as rsa is the default anyway, and I don't add a password I just press enter twice and leave it blank, adding a password ensures that if somebody should get hold of your key they still need your password to use it).

* - id_rsa (key - Only exists once on local machine /home/myuser/.ssh/id_rsa)
* id_rsa.pub (lock - Which is found on my local machine in /home/myuser/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, the actual content of which is what goes into the /var/aegir/.ssh/authorized_keys and /home/myuser/.ssh/authorized_keys files on my server)

I believe it is possible to use multiple keys and locks in the correct files however, the lock supposedly cannot be reversed engineered to find the key so, I KISS (b/c I am stupid) and use the same lock in different places, above you can see I am using the same lock to log in as the aegir user as I am for logging in as myuser, another e.g would be as follows, I use the same lock (id_rsa.pub) again for github as I do on my development server and therefor the same key (id_rsa), which still only exists once in /home/myuser/.ssh/id_rsa. (on my local machine)

I tend to think of the authorized_keys file as a door, it can have many locks but, you only need a key for one of the locks to be able to open the door.

As you can see then on my development server, I create and add my own user to the sudoers file to replace the root user login, I use the same lock for my own user which I create for carrying out day to day admin to replace root and the aegir system user which I gave a shell using the
* chsh -s /bin/bash aegir (Which is detailed here, notice also the requirement of logging in with the command line once so that an entry is made in the known_hosts file),
this allows me to easily access my server as the aegir user or my own user, from my own user account on my local machine (note: I don't need an aegir user on my local machine for this to work).

So where does Linux come into it?

Recently I discovered the short comings of shared hosting and realized Drupal is best run on a VPS and Linux, I decided to switch my O/S over so as to gain some experience prior to taking on a vps and the bill which results!
So I use Kubuntu (a linux distro which kicks ass) on my desktop.
I am then, using the same ext3 file-system type as my server instead of ntfs used by windows, this increased compatibility can't hurt and is why I don't even need separate programs like putty or filezilla, I have the linux command line at my disposal and I have dolphin (equivalent of windoze explorer), dolphin has built in sftp capability which allows me to add my server as a network location using ssh, I just choose ssh enter a name for the connection, the name of the user I want to be logged in as on the server, the server ip and ssh port number, and the directory on the server to use, e.g I use /var/aegir for my aegir user login to start in.

So once I have my ssh keys setup and I've added the server as a network location I add that to "my places".
Then I add an activity (activities=desktops in kubuntu) to my local machine called something like "server-live-view" (not really "KISS" compliant, but I like to keep things seperate).
From this point I can view my server as the aegir user as if it was a directory on my local machine, so next I add a folder view to the desktop of my "server-live-view" activity and set it to my new network location place i.e /var/aegir.

As smirro2000 states once you know your ssh-key login is working you can disble password authentication to stop anybody guessing at your password, I also add myuser to the aegir group so I can access aegir directories etc without having to switch to the aegir user but that's another story and not without it's own caveats!

The main reason I setup like this is that - I am accustomed to a gui, this setup helps me to visualize what's going on, the main thing I use it for is to "view" directories and files on my server.
I can open server files to edit in my text editor and create or drag and drop files etc straight into directories on my server and all as the aegir user, I just keep a close eye on owners and permissions when doing so.

Disclaimer

As I said I'm new to Linux sys-admin and completely unqualified, I am learning as I go and it is entirely possible for me to be wrong (ADis goes red) and highly likely I veer away from best practice at times, also I have never used a mac but as I understand it mac O/S is unix based and therefor may offer some or all of these capabilities that kubuntu does, the only problem for "me" is macs cost $$$, especially here in "Rip-off Britain", besides which it's propriety software and I have limited resources at my disposal and also I am very tight hehe.
This is just my two cents and how I do ssh and sftp, so please don't just take my word for it and good luck >=)