like a public s3 bucket

I want to use the repo as a public image and audio file repository.

But it will not enable you to have public access - as you describe it

I can suggest a workaround - not tested - but may work

but another question first - the public access s3 provides is for s3 protocol

and there is an option to enable http (non secure) too - for secure you need LB with certificate - as far as I remember.

Do you want to serve the content though s3 protocol - or access the lakefs UI?

One workaround you can do to give read only access to lakeFS without passing credentials (or any other service that supports http user auth) is using nginx pass proxy that will pass the credentials for you. Create a lakeFS with read-only access first. Encode Authorization header

curl -v -u key:secret <http://www.google.com|www.google.com> 2>&1 | grep Authorization

Will hill dump the value you need. On the nginx root location you can redirect the traffic to lakeFS and pass the above creds:

proxy_pass <http://127.0.0.1:8000>;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header Authorization "Basic ...";

This is sample configuration based on the fact that both running on the same machine.

Note that this is a generic workaround and not something designed to work with lakeFS. It is a general way to open access with specific credentials.

And the s3 gateway will not work with the workaround.