diff --git a/indexer/src/main/java/com/metamx/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerNode.java b/indexer/src/main/java/com/metamx/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerNode.java
index 96d8ad7aad8..7f2ad3f52f2 100644
--- a/indexer/src/main/java/com/metamx/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerNode.java
+++ b/indexer/src/main/java/com/metamx/druid/indexer/HadoopDruidIndexerNode.java
@@ -22,12 +22,18 @@ package com.metamx.druid.indexer;
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.jsontype.NamedType;
 import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
 import com.google.common.collect.Lists;
+import com.google.common.io.CharStreams;
+import com.google.common.io.InputSupplier;
 import com.metamx.common.lifecycle.LifecycleStart;
 import com.metamx.common.lifecycle.LifecycleStop;
-
+import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem;
+import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path;
 import org.joda.time.Interval;
 
 import java.io.File;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.List;
 
@@ -87,6 +93,20 @@ public class HadoopDruidIndexerNode
     final HadoopDruidIndexerConfig config;
     if (argumentSpec.startsWith("{")) {
       config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromString(argumentSpec);
+    } else if (argumentSpec.startsWith("s3://")) {
+      final Path s3nPath = new Path(String.format("s3n://%s", argumentSpec.substring("s3://".length())));
+      final FileSystem fs = s3nPath.getFileSystem(new Configuration());
+
+      String configString = CharStreams.toString(new InputSupplier<Readable>()
+      {
+        @Override
+        public Readable getInput() throws IOException
+        {
+          return new InputStreamReader(fs.open(s3nPath));
+        }
+      });
+
+      config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromString(configString);
     } else {
       config = HadoopDruidIndexerConfig.fromFile(new File(argumentSpec));
     }