Enable Remote Login (SSH) without GUI on a Mac

systemsetup -setremotelogin on

I got this from the templates in Apple Remote Desktop.

Rather late ..but perhaps useful for anyone facing a similar issue and finding this. Especially when your can't apply cocoabean's anwer, because remote login is disabled (…);

If loginwindow shows username- and password-textfields, then in the username field type:

>console

followed by ↩ (enter/return).

This will drop you straight into a login-prompt in an interactive shell on the local machine.

And i believe that the WindowServer actually gets killed in this scenario, making it even impossible for GUI-apps to run at all.

In case your loginwindow shows the list of users and ends with an "Other…"-option, clicking that will also get you to the two textfields-view with the.

If you can't enter the >console through the login-window, you can use single-user mode by booting with ⌘-S (comman) keys pressed.