rebooting into single user mode on a remote server

[pobox at verysmall.org]

Daniel Gerzo wrote:
> Hello pobox,
> 
> Saturday, September 16, 2006, 8:47:04 PM, you wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
> 
>> could somebody help me to understand the best way to enter into a single
>> user mode on a remote server.
> 
>> I need it for the moment, during rebuilding world, when I have to reboot
>> into single user mode before 'mergemaster -p'.
> 
> I don't want to persuade you to something that is not officially
> supported, but I have never booted into single user mode while
> upgrading my FreeBSD boxes and I have never experienced any problems
> because of this. Just try to skip the reboot step and go ahead. It
> works(tm) for me this way.
> 
> If you are paranoid, try to stop all running services except the ssh
> deamon.

Phew... I hear this again and again.

Only I am not sure I have the level of boldness to do this on a 
production machine.

Isn't the following sequence of steps similar - 'shutdown -r now' 
(reboots in multi-user mode), and then immediately 'shutdown now' (drops 
to single user mode)?

Iv.