diff --git a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/transport/AmazonS3.java b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/transport/AmazonS3.java
index 4fec5da78..d48252174 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/transport/AmazonS3.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.jgit/src/org/eclipse/jgit/transport/AmazonS3.java
@@ -171,6 +171,9 @@ private static MessageDigest newMD5() {
 	/** S3 Bucket Domain. */
 	private final String domain;
 
+	/** S3 Protocol, "https" or "http"; defaults to "http". */
+	private final String protocol;
+
 	/** S3 Region. */
 	private final String region;
 
@@ -183,6 +186,7 @@ interface Keys {
 		String CRYPTO_ALG = "crypto.algorithm"; //$NON-NLS-1$
 		String CRYPTO_VER = "crypto.version"; //$NON-NLS-1$
 		String ACL = "acl"; //$NON-NLS-1$
+		String PROTOCOL = "protocol"; //$NON-NLS-1$
 		String DOMAIN = "domain"; //$NON-NLS-1$
 		String REGION = "region"; //$NON-NLS-1$
 		String HTTP_RETRY = "httpclient.retry-max"; //$NON-NLS-1$
@@ -246,6 +250,8 @@ public AmazonS3(final Properties props) {
 					awsApiSignatureVersion));
 		}
 
+		protocol = props.getProperty(Keys.PROTOCOL, "http"); //$NON-NLS-1$
+
 		domain = props.getProperty(Keys.DOMAIN, "s3.amazonaws.com"); //$NON-NLS-1$
 
 		publicKey = props.getProperty(Keys.ACCESS_KEY);
@@ -590,7 +596,8 @@ HttpURLConnection open(final String method, final String bucket,
 			final String key, final Map<String, String> args)
 			throws IOException {
 		final StringBuilder urlstr = new StringBuilder();
-		urlstr.append("http://"); //$NON-NLS-1$
+		urlstr.append(protocol); //$NON-NLS-1$
+		urlstr.append("://"); //$NON-NLS-1$
 		urlstr.append(bucket);
 		urlstr.append('.');
 		urlstr.append(domain);