Access data from a linux partition inside an image without root privileges

I have a whole-drive image file containing a partition table and some partitions. I would like to list and read files from an ext2/ext3 partition inside this file.

Using root priveleges, it is somehow complicatied but possible to mount into some offset of the image file, thus mounting a partition inside the image like a real one.

Is there any chance of accessing the data without root privileges?

e2tools

Ah, i knew there had to be a better way. On ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install e2tools

Then:

$ e2ls image.ext2
myfile foo bar baz
$ e2cp image.ext2:/myfile /tmp

etc

Of course if you're not root you can't use apt-get: download e2tools binary package from packages.ubuntu.com and install it in your home dir like in the fs-utils answer.