[rdiff-backup-users] On Demand Access to increments/versions via Samba or HTTP

[Joe Baker]

Has anybody automated the access to older versions of files?

I'm envisioning a self-service tool for users to gain read-only access 
to past versions of their rdiff-backup files, or maybe even to linux 
package distribution repositories at particular time snapshots where all 
the packages are in sync with each other (a problem that occasionally 
occurs on the Mandrake Cooker repositories).  This method would save 
enormous disk space and would allow users to go back in time when need be.

It would be cool to have samba shares which use the "precommand" feature 
that would run the rdiff-backup --list-increments command, then create 
subdirectories for each increment along with a short script in each 
directory to extract the contents of that increment.  Each time a user 
accesses a subdirectory of this samba share, the precommand would 
execute, extracting only one level of files & directories.

-Joseph William Baker (Joe Baker)
NEL Frequency Controls, Inc.
Burlington, Wisconsin, USA