bt> I have my firewall set to default drop everything.
bt> When I run the sh ipfw over a ssh session, I always lose the ssh connection,
bt> and the firewall is not updated but only erased.

The problem (I think) is that ipfw is trying to tell you what it is
doing as it goes along, which means ssh tries to send text to you,
hits a partially configured firewall and dies.

What you need to do is make sure you can do the whole thing in one
command, eg by writing a little script even if you are only doing a
couple of commands.

Then you have to make sure you don't get any output until it is all
done.

        firewall$ sh -x do_firewall_stuff.sh >TRACE 2>&1

        firewall$ less TRACE

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