The invention relates to a system and to a method for automatically providing system software which is filed in software packets, for system nodes which are arranged in a distributed network, in particular in a distributed automatic system. The inventive system comprises at least one system diagnosis tool which analyses the current state of the system of the distributed network and combines the current state of the data in system status data which is guided to at least one knowledge-based planning tool. Said knowledge-based planning tool produces a system plan for a novel system version, based on control and data, from the system status data and a planning data base, generating installation data for an automatic installation and configuration of the system configuration based on the produced system plan for the system nodes of the distributed network, and guides the installation data to at least one installation and configuration tool, provided in the system nodes. The installation and configuration tool, of the respective system node automatically selects, from the installation data, the software packets which are to be installed, installs and configures said latter, which enable, after configuring the installed software packets, the functionality of the distributed network to be re-established.