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The documentation of vsftpd is quite good (https://security.appspot.com/vsftpd/vsftpd_conf.html), however I cannot find some details on how to use public key authentication. I know that I need require_cert and maybe validate_cert, but where do I put the public client keys, which are accepted for authentication? I cannot find information on that.

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vsftpd is for ftp, ftp by its very nature is not encrypted or using ssh (ftp over ssl is another matter)

you cant setup public key authentication with vsftpd - you are getting confused between FTPs and sftp which are 2 different protocols

to use public key auth for sftp its just a matter of installing your public key on the server as you would for ssh as detailed here - http://www.noah.org/wiki/SSH_public_keys

then you can use sftp with public key auth with no further config in your sftp client normally

if your talking about setting up FTPs or FTP over SSL then this guide will be useful - http://wiki.vpslink.com/Configuring_vsftpd_for_secure_connections_%28TLS/SSL/SFTP%29

however this is not public key auth, its just the ability to encrypt your ftp connection and thus not send your passwords over plaintext channels

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Yes, I am talking about FTPs / FTP over SSL. Hm, so I guess I don't need to install anything on the server, but rather create my own certificate authority, and then sign the client keys using my own CA cert? Thus require_cert and validate_cert will be all I need, plus maybe ca_certs_file, which contains my CA certificate. – Arne Aug 13 '11 at 18:15
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