Why "system-config-network" not able to change PREFIX value in "ifcfg-ethX" in RHEL?

Issue

• After reconfiguring the network-settings on a machine noticed that, wrong netmask has been set for the interface in ifconfig output.

• Using /usr/sbin/system-config-network we had edited the interface configuration to set the the new subnet mask which is correctly reflected in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX file.

• In the ifcfg-ethX we see with system-config-network utility NETMASK value gets added additional to PREFIX parameter instead of editing the PREFIX values set earlier.

• Is this a bug or for some unknown reason intended to work this way?

• KDE Info Center GUI tool and system-config-network-tui program show different netmask.