For a variety of reasons, a packet en route to its destination often passes through one or more networking device(s). For example, for security purposes, a packet may pass through various network devices, such as a firewall, a router, and an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). Once a networking device has received the packet it may perform a series of complex operations on the packet before the packet is allowed to be transmitted or is dropped. For example, a firewall that has received a packet may perform a series of operations on the packet to determine whether the packet is valid and safe before transmitting it out the egress (output) interface.
With conventional approaches, a user may know that a packet has arrived in the ingress interface of a network device, but the user has no efficient way of determining the various operations performed on the packet within a network device. For example, with conventional approaches, a user may need to go through what could possibly be hundreds of logging messages to try to understand the various operations performed on a packet within a network device. In addition, in a typical network device, the conditions and rules that have been configured are generally numerous and complex, which means that the reason for dropping a packet in a network device may be elusive for a user on a time constraint and without full understanding of the device, or intimate knowledge of the protocols utilized.
For example, a traditional approach in analyzing the operations performed on the packet is by examining associated logs (syslogs) and debugs. However, a limitation of current logs and debugs is that the current logs and debugs do not apply to a single packet, but instead apply to an entire feature or protocol. As of result, trying to determine the operations performed on an individual packet by examining associated logs and/or debugs requires correlation of the logs/debugs back to the specific packet. This is very time consuming and inefficient.