sftp vs ssh public/private key (beginner)

I'm given my public key开发者_开发知识库 to a server and now I have the ability to connect to it via sftp in nautilus. Is there a way for me to use those same credentials to ssh to the server through terminal?

Yes. Add your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and that should do it (most of the times, depends on server settings).

Here is a tutorial for setting up the password-less ssh authentication:

http://manjeetdahiya.com/2011/03/03/passwordless-ssh-login/