diff --git a/start-finalSetup02Modpack b/start-finalSetup02Modpack
index 782377c0..94b637a0 100644
--- a/start-finalSetup02Modpack
+++ b/start-finalSetup02Modpack
@@ -78,10 +78,20 @@ done
 fi
 
 if [[ "$MANIFEST" ]]; then
-EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL=$(curl -Ls -o /dev/null -w %{url_effective} $MANIFEST)
-case "X$EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL" in
+    if [[ -e "$MANIFEST" ]]; then
+        EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_FILE=$MANIFEST
+    elif isURL "$MANIFEST"; then
+        EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_FILE=/tmp/manifest.json
+        EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL=$(curl -Ls -o /dev/null -w %{url_effective} $MANIFEST)
+        curl -Ls -o $EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_FILE "$EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL"
+    else
+        echo "MANIFEST='$MANIFEST' is not a valid manifest url or location"
+        exit 2
+    fi
+
+case "X$EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_FILE" in
   X*.json)
-    if [ -f "${EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL}" ]; then
+    if [ -f "${EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_FILE}" ]; then
       MOD_DIR=${FTB_BASE_DIR:-/data}/mods
       if [ ! -d "$MOD_DIR" ]
       then
@@ -89,7 +99,7 @@ case "X$EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL" in
         mkdir -p "$MOD_DIR"
       fi
       echo "Starting manifest download..."
-      cat "${EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_URL}" | jq -r '.files[] | (.projectID|tostring) + " " + (.fileID|tostring)'| while read -r p f
+      cat "${EFFECTIVE_MANIFEST_FILE}" | jq -r '.files[] | (.projectID|tostring) + " " + (.fileID|tostring)'| while read -r p f
       do
         if [ ! -f $MOD_DIR/${p}_${f}.jar ]
         then
diff --git a/start-utils b/start-utils
index 8a2cd621..a2aaa18d 100644
--- a/start-utils
+++ b/start-utils
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 function isURL {
   local value=$1
 
-  if [[ ${value:0:8} == "https://" || ${value:0:7} = "http://" ]]; then
+  if [[ ${value:0:8} == "https://" || ${value:0:7} == "http://" ]]; then
     return 0
   else
     return 1
@@ -39,4 +39,4 @@ function debug {
   if isDebugging; then
     echo "DEBUG: $*"
   fi
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}