Thanks for adding the RFE -- The development language aspect to some degree is
driving how much this can be done -- within python, one may either open a file
handle for logging to, or perhaps a preferred method would be to describe a
'sufficient' summary of the net config file changes with the syslog.

By using a scheme like:
  echo "echo "rh-c-n eth1 static 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0." | \
         /usr/bin/logger -p local0.info
once gets a truly portable way to record the information.

It may be beter to use a series of logging entries:
   echo "echo "rh-c-n device=eth1 " | \
     /usr/bin/logger -p auth.warning
   echo "echo "rh-c-n proto=static " | \
     /usr/bin/logger -p auth.warning
and so forth ... the transaction series will automatically get the process ID
added by the syslog, so we can differientiate transaction groups.

What a concept -- using small *nix tools to build better tools.

The question of what, and how to log at initial install/upgrade Anaconda time
remains -- currently we append into the file down in /tmp -- having a syslog
thread running early is possible, but it is not possible to start it _too_ early
in an install or upgrade, because there may be no partition yet to hold the
destination syslog logging file.

A couple of approaches appear -- hold a temp file until the destination is
present, or just stay with the logging file, and maybe write a late process step
to dump, line by line, the conents of that file to a 'logger' once it _is_
possible to start a syslogd up ...

Created attachment 71325 [details]
/var/log/explanations from Mandrake 9.0 beta 3

alexl asked for example Mandrake DrakConf /var/log/explanations.  The
above attached is from my friend's computer.

It would be really nice if Red Hat's tools did something similar, perhaps to the
same log filename.

To me, the install/upgrade case is handled by anaconda and uses the 
files /root/install.log and /root/upgrade.log. Are the redhat-config-* apps 
even used during install/upgrade?

The use of the redhat-config-* apps post install are, to me, the important 
case.

Thanks, Warren -- the content attached looks just like what my suggestion would 
have produced with logger, and an entry in the /etc/syslogd.conf file:

local0.*	/var/log/explanations

Later, perhaps.

Reopen as an RFE for post RHL 8.0 consideration in planning items for next release

http://people.redhat.com/harald/redhat-config-network
with -vvvvvv you'll see most writing/modifying actions

As a matter of course (ie, automatically and always), all the redhat-config-*
apps should log what they do. To the file /var/log/redhat-config or something.

This RFE doesn't apply just to redhat-config-network, but to all the
redhat-config apps.

Any progress on this?

redhat/system-config-network  writes its changes to
/var/log/{redhat,system}-config-network