• booting clients over the network (PXE and PXELinux)
• partitioning the disk drive from a NFS-Root based filesystem
• copying setup files to a client using either 'rsync' or 'BitTorrent'
• unattended installation of either Microsoft Windows or Linux using answer files
• configuring settings and preferences at the end of the operating system setup by running nifty batch jobs
• unattended installation of applications
• checking host status through SNMP
• host discovery through static MAC entries (including experiments with MAC spoofing) and using the SNMP-capabilities of Ethernet switches
• PHP PEAR-compliant classes to manipulate SysLinux/PXELinux files

There are already many applications out there offering these features (Microsoft Remote Installation Services, Altiris) but my goal was to do it with open source tools. With tools like PXELinux, parted, ms-sys, BitTorrent and much more I was able to build my own setup tool and allowing me to tweak the client setups to go faster and faster.

In the end my intention is not to deliver a solid product but just a bunch of ideas (JBOI) and tricks which may help you build your own solution.