Is there a straightforward way to get individual files from a backup without restoring the entire backup?

One way I figured is to create a new Linode and restore your most recent backup to it, then use FTP to grab the files. But this costs money, of course. Is there a way to restore a backup to disk space on your current Linode and access it without interfering with the running site?

You definitely need to restore the entire backup to get access to any portion of the images, but yes, providing you have enough disk space you could choose to restore to your current Linode.

You'd then have to attach the appropriate disk image from the restoration to your Linode, and from within the Linode arrange to mount the device, from which you could then access any files you wanted.

This will require at least one reboot of your Linode to change the set of attached disk images (plus probably one more to remove the image when done) so not entirely non-interfering.

In terms of cost, creating a new Linode to do the restoration and then removing should only impact your cash flow, but minimally the total cost. That's because the remaining amount from the first month of the new Linode will just get credited to your account and will offset any subsequent invoice for the current Linode. Of course, if you're paying yearly it might be a while before that credit gets used.

If providing for this is something you want to be able to do semi-regularly, it's probably better to handle the backups yourself (which can be in addition to the full image disaster backups offered by the Linode service) which can then in turn provide an easier (and probably quicker) time of restoring single files.

-- David