Documentation/lei-add-external.pod   |  4 +++-
 Documentation/public-inbox-clone.pod |  6 ++++++
 lib/PublicInbox/LeiMirror.pm         | 31 +++++++++++++++++++------------
 script/public-inbox-clone            |  2 +-

diff --git a/Documentation/lei-add-external.pod b/Documentation/lei-add-external.pod
index 7afcad637f7317044a2409c75341dd8f7074d90a..2a131b553b8ef3b611c732d5336932bbc0f646ee 100644
--- a/Documentation/lei-add-external.pod
+++ b/Documentation/lei-add-external.pod
@@ -75,7 +75,9 @@ Default: C<auto>
 
 =item --inbox-version=NUM
 
-Force a public-inbox version (must be C<1> or C<2>).
+Force a remote public-inbox version (must be C<1> or C<2>).
+This is auto-detected by default, and this option exists mainly
+for testing.
 
 =back
 
diff --git a/Documentation/public-inbox-clone.pod b/Documentation/public-inbox-clone.pod
index 52c89cfd1d97bffc5e7a6ecf892cb408aa08c457..1c31fbb3345000501ff2b814118d99e43e194f2e 100644
--- a/Documentation/public-inbox-clone.pod
+++ b/Documentation/public-inbox-clone.pod
@@ -76,6 +76,12 @@ no v1 inboxes are present.
 
 Default: C<always>
 
+=item --inbox-version=NUM
+
+Force a remote public-inbox version (must be C<1> or C<2>).
+This is auto-detected by default, and this option exists mainly
+for testing.
+
 =item -n
 
 =item --dry-run
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiMirror.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiMirror.pm
index 18c825d3ccdc7bf69fe59acadeec165867eddfcd..c3512d439e474d371dcf81d934a66d5561fe64de 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiMirror.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiMirror.pm
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ }
 
 # for old installations without manifest.js.gz
 sub try_scrape {
-	my ($self) = @_;
+	my ($self, $fallback_manifest) = @_;
 	my $uri = URI->new($self->{src});
 	my $lei = $self->{lei};
 	my $curl = $self->{curl} //= PublicInbox::LeiCurl->new($lei) or return;
@@ -54,9 +54,17 @@ 	my $html = do { local $/; <$fh> } // die "read(curl $uri): $!";
 	close($fh) or return $lei->child_error($?, "@$cmd failed");
 
 	# we grep with URL below, we don't want Subject/From headers
-	# making us clone random URLs
+	# making us clone random URLs.  This assumes remote instances
+	# prior to public-inbox 1.7.0
+	# 5b96edcb1e0d8252 (www: move mirror instructions to /text/, 2021-08-28)
 	my @html = split(/<hr>/, $html);
 	my @urls = ($html[-1] =~ m!\bgit clone --mirror ([a-z\+]+://\S+)!g);
+	if (!@urls && $fallback_manifest) {
+		warn <<EOM;
+W: failed to extract URLs from $uri, trying manifest.js.gz...
+EOM
+		return start_clone_url($self);
+	}
 	my $url = $uri->as_string;
 	chop($url) eq '/' or die "BUG: $uri not canonicalized";
 
@@ -603,7 +611,6 @@ 	my $fn = $ft->filename;
 	my $cmd = $curl->for_uri($lei, $uri, '-R', '-o', $fn);
 	my %opt = map { $_ => $lei->{$_} } (0..2);
 	my $cerr = run_reap($lei, $cmd, \%opt);
-	local $LIVE;
 	if ($cerr) {
 		return try_scrape($self) if ($cerr >> 8) == 22; # 404 missing
 		return $lei->child_error($cerr, "@$cmd failed");
@@ -698,15 +705,15 @@ 		my $ic = $lei->{opt}->{'inbox-config'} //= 'always';
 		$ic =~ /\A(?:v1|v2|always|never)\z/s or die <<"";
 --inbox-config must be one of `always', `v2', `v1', or `never'
 
-		my $iv = $lei->{opt}->{'inbox-version'};
-		if (defined $iv) {
-			local $LIVE;
-			return clone_v1($self) if $iv == 1;
-			return try_scrape($self) if $iv == 2;
-			die "bad --inbox-version=$iv\n";
-		}
-		return start_clone_url($self) if $self->{src} =~ m!://!;
-		die "TODO: cloning local directories not supported, yet";
+		local $LIVE;
+		my $iv = $lei->{opt}->{'inbox-version'} //
+			return start_clone_url($self);
+		return clone_v1($self) if $iv == 1;
+		die "bad --inbox-version=$iv\n" if $iv != 2;
+		die <<EOM if $self->{src} !~ m!://!;
+cloning local v2 inboxes not supported
+EOM
+		try_scrape($self, 1);
 	};
 	$lei->fail($@) if $@;
 }
diff --git a/script/public-inbox-clone b/script/public-inbox-clone
index 3d980c97da779a3ca2d69489d48ebc357fbd9595..2900f2329549a1797786c5072a28d251e992b6a6 100755
--- a/script/public-inbox-clone
+++ b/script/public-inbox-clone
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@     --quiet | -q      increase verbosity (may be repeated)
     -C DIR            chdir to specified directory
 EOF
 GetOptions($opt, qw(help|h quiet|q verbose|v+ C=s@ c=s@ include|I=s@ exclude=s@
-	inbox-config=s
+	inbox-config=s inbox-version=i
 	dry-run|n jobs|j=i no-torsocks torsocks=s epoch=s)) or die $help;
 if ($opt->{help}) { print $help; exit };
 require PublicInbox::Admin; # loads Config