i'd suggest to use a SPARC machine and get it connected to sth. like a 
portmaster or another machine -- that makes sure that you'll have access 
even to pre-boot functionalities (here: OpenFirmware).

furthermore, there may be reason to reboot or get into single-user mode: 
new/fixed/optimized kernel, or installation of userland apps.

regards,

timo

>>> I need to make a netbsd 1.6.1 box ready for an envirionment without
>>> people arround. There's only an network connection with telnet, no
>>> keyboard or whatever. So I need to prepare the box to ensure it will
>>> always stand by. (except hardware errors of course). I'm about to 
>>> make a
>>> hardware watchdog to reset the box if the OS would hang for whatever
>>> reason.
>>> One thing is that I already got problems with coming back after a
>>> temporary power supply fail. Before mounting the partitions fsck 
>>> found a
>>> partition inconsistent and falls back into a single-user mode without
>>> telnet or network connection. Something I absolutely don't want to
>>> happen. Is there a way to ensure the system won't stop booting because
>>> of this kind of problems?  
>>
>>
>> Sooner or later, you're going to need remote access to the console, 
>> if for
>> no other reason than that single user mode is useful for all sorts of
>> things.  
>
>
> I can't see any reason for a netbsd network server to reboot as long 
> as there are no remote exploitable vulnerabilities in the kernel 
> itself or a hardware failure occurs.
>
> So, for the system coming up after power supply failure, you could do 
> two things: mount the partions without soft dependencies and set 
> fsck_flags in /etc/rc.conf.
>
> Martin