Here's how to create a Amazon [[S3 special remote|special_remotes/S3]] that
can be read by anyone who gets a clone of your git-annex repository,
without them needing Amazon AWS credentials.

Note: Bear in mind that Amazon will charge the owner of the bucket
for public downloads from that bucket.

## create public remote

First, export your Amazon AWS credentials:

	# export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="08TJMT99S3511WOZEP91"
	# export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="s3kr1t"

Now, create the remote:

	# git annex initremote pubs3 type=S3 encryption=none public=yes
	initremote pubs3 (checking bucket) (creating bucket in US) ok

The public=yes is the crtical part; this lets the public read the contents
of the bucket. (This feature needs git-annex 5.20150617 or newer.)

In the above example, no encryption was used, but it will also work
if you enable encryption=shared. Then files will be encrypted on S3, and
anyone with a clone of the git repository will be able to download and
decrypt them.

It's also ok to enable chunking when setting up the remote.

Now, copy some files to the remote, in the usual way, and push your
git repository to someplace where someone else can access it.

## use public remote

Once the S3 remote is set up, anyone who can clone the git repositry
can get files from the remote, without needing any Amazon AWS credentials.

Start by checking out the git repository. 

In the checkout, enable the S3 remote:

	# git annex enableremote pubs3
	enableremote pubs3 ok

Now, git-annex can be used as usual to download files from that remote.

## sharing urls

You can also share urls to files stored in a public S3 remote to people
who are not using git-annex. To find the url, use `git annex whereis`.

----

See [[special_remotes/S3]] for details about configuring S3 remotes.

See [[publishing_your_files_to_the_public]] for other ways to use a public
S3 bucket.
