I might have enabled the IPS years ago and immediately disabled it again. Not sure.
I noticed that “/var/ipfire/suricata/settings” exists, but is empty.
After installtion /vat/ipfire/suricata/settings is empty, this is normal.
You have to configure a ruleset and save the settings. After this the ruleset will downloaded and installed before this is finished you cannot enable IPS.
Ok, this is somewhat counter-intuitive =)
As a newbie to this you think that there is a ruleset chosen in the dropdown. Perhaps there should be a note like “You have to select and save a ruleset first, before being able to enable the IPS”.