I was looking for a method to restrict access to a private Debian repository and be able to authenticate to it non-interactively (i.e. using a script)

The most useful article I found if actually one from [Debian administration site](http://www.debian-administration.org/article/Restrict_Access_To_Your_Private_Debian_Repository) but the secure method uses ssh and public/private keys. It works great but each host's public key needs to be inside the remote authorized\_keys file to successfully authenticate. 
It doesn't says nothing about providing password to ssh:// but I suppose it should be possible.

Have you tried other alternatives (e.g. ftps)? 

Thanks in advance