The invention relates to a system and to a method for automatically creating, installing and configuring extensions of functionalities in the system nodes of a distributed network, in particular in a distributed automatic system, provided with at least one system diagnosis tool which analyses the current state of the system of the distributed network and combines in system status data which is guided to at least one knowledge-based planning tool. The knowledge-based planning tool creates installation data for the novel system extensions which are based on control and data from the system status data and a planning data base and guides said installation data, respectively, to at least one installation and configuration tool, which is provided in the system nodes. The installation and configuration tool, of the respective system node automatically selects, from the installation data, the extension of the functionalities, which are to be installed, in the system nodes of the distributed network, installs and configures the latter, and enables, after the configuration of the installed software packets, the functionalities of the distributed network to be re-established.