diff --git a/etc/glance-api.conf b/etc/glance-api.conf
index 5e6956d52c..254e9db149 100644
--- a/etc/glance-api.conf
+++ b/etc/glance-api.conf
@@ -94,6 +94,8 @@ swift_enable_snet = False
 # ============ S3 Store Options =============================
 
 # Address where the S3 authentication service lives
+# Valid schemes are 'http://' and 'https://'
+# If no scheme specified,  default to 'http://'
 s3_store_host = 127.0.0.1:8080/v1.0/
 
 # User to authenticate against the S3 authentication service
diff --git a/glance/store/s3.py b/glance/store/s3.py
index 46032055dd..01343be6b9 100644
--- a/glance/store/s3.py
+++ b/glance/store/s3.py
@@ -38,9 +38,9 @@ class StoreLocation(glance.store.location.StoreLocation):
     Class describing an S3 URI. An S3 URI can look like any of
     the following:
 
-        s3://accesskey:secretkey@s3service.com/bucket/key-id
-        s3+http://accesskey:secretkey@s3service.com/bucket/key-id
-        s3+https://accesskey:secretkey@s3service.com/bucket/key-id
+        s3://accesskey:secretkey@s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/key-id
+        s3+http://accesskey:secretkey@s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/key-id
+        s3+https://accesskey:secretkey@s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/key-id
 
     The s3+https:// URIs indicate there is an HTTPS s3service URL
     """
@@ -84,15 +84,19 @@ class StoreLocation(glance.store.location.StoreLocation):
         This function works around that issue.
         """
         # Make sure that URIs that contain multiple schemes, such as:
-        # swift://user:pass@http://authurl.com/v1/container/obj
+        # s3://accesskey:secretkey@https://s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/key-id
         # are immediately rejected.
         if uri.count('://') != 1:
-            reason = _("URI Cannot contain more than one occurrence of a "
-                      "scheme. If you have specified a "
-                      "URI like s3://user:pass@https://s3.amazonaws.com/"
-                      "bucket/key, you need to change it to use the "
-                      "s3+https:// scheme, like so: "
-                      "s3+https://user:pass@s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/key")
+            reason = _(
+                    "URI cannot contain more than one occurrence of a scheme."
+                    "If you have specified a URI like "
+                    "s3://accesskey:secretkey@https://s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/"
+                    "key-id"
+                    ", you need to change it to use the s3+https:// scheme, "
+                    "like so: "
+                    "s3+https://accesskey:secretkey@s3.amazonaws.com/bucket/"
+                    "key-id"
+                      )
             raise exception.BadStoreUri(uri, reason)
 
         pieces = urlparse.urlparse(uri)
@@ -203,7 +207,7 @@ class Store(glance.store.base.Store):
 
         self.scheme = 's3'
         if self.s3_host.startswith('https://'):
-            self.scheme = 'swift+https'
+            self.scheme = 's3+https'
             self.full_s3_host = self.s3_host
         elif self.s3_host.startswith('http://'):
             self.full_s3_host = self.s3_host