localhost vanished

[Jpydeep Bakshi <hizibizi@spymac.com>]

I have just checked  *ping 127.0.0.1* and have found  *network unreachable*

*ifconfig -a* shows *lo* entry with out the inet-address. I have 
checked /etc/hosts file and get the line

127.0.0.1  localhost.localdomain debian

so I did   1) ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1
      2) route add 127.0.0.1

after executing the second line an error message came as

 SIOCADDRT: No such device

now * ping 127.0.0.1 * again started working but after restarting the machine 
my localhost vanished and *ifconfig* gave a blank output. have I done any 
mistake to configure the loopback ? how can I solve the problem ? please 
suggest.  thanks. pls cc to me