Questions with this Snort IPS setup

[Ricky Huang <rhuang.work () gmail com>]

Hello all,

I am interested in running Snort as an IPS on one of my servers.  Following various documentations and help from the 
mailing list, I was able to load the ipfw related kernel modules (ipdivert_load and firewall_enable),  spin up a Snort 
daemon, add divert rule to ipfw, and test a couple of custom rules.

I have questions on a couple of things:
1)  With ipfw divert all traffic through Snort, if Snort dies for any reason, I will be effectively locked out.  What's 
the standard practice to leave one with a backdoor to get back to the remote server?
2)  A quick search through pulledpork-updated snort.rules shows that there aren't any drop rules; they're all alerts.  
Is there a standard set of drop rules for an IPS?
3)  Are there ways of creating email alerts such that the admin staff receives alert emails on certain events?


Thanks for the time in advance!

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