Bootstrapping Kickstart for Free

Having spent a (very) little time over the last month fiddling with an existing FAI setup (which is used to install Debian machines) one amazingly insightful feature of Kickstart (a provisioning tool for Redhat and Fedora) has earned a place in my heart - /root/anaconda-ks.cfg.

It might not seem like much, but by having the interactive installer produce a working config that can be reused, the barrier to entry is seriously lowered and makes experimentation much easier. If you want to add a feature to your new machines then just add it to the test install and crib from the config file. Excellent.