SIOCSIFADDR: Bad file descriptor

[egon@egon.cc]

In the process of upgrading to a 2.4.0 kernel, I started receiving the
above error when I tried to configure any network device (eth0, lo,
ppp0, dummy0, etc). Thinking it was a problem with the new kernel, I
booted back to a 2.2 kernel, where the problem started appearing as
well. I've gone back to 2.4.0, pulled out everything extra possible,
and I'm still getting the error. Interfaces appear in an "ifconfig -a"
and in /proc/net/dev, can be shown by "ifconfig INTERFACE", but any
attempt to change a setting, like IP address and I get:

# ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1 
SIOCSIFADDR: Bad file descriptor 
lo: unknown interface: Bad file descriptor 

# ifconfig lo down 
lo: unknown interface: Bad file descriptor 

Any help is appreciated. 

-james