A city clerk reports that a policy on an IOS XE edge router drops a specific flow, but show access-lists counters are inconclusive. Which diagnostic best shows where in the forwarding path the drop occurs?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Packet Trace is like putting a tracking sticker on one parcel and watching which loading dock rejects it. You feed the 5-tuple, and IOS XE tells you which feature dropped the flow—without flooding the console with every debug under the sun.
Full Explanation
Cisco IOS XE Packet Trace injects or traces a representative packet through the platform forwarding path and reports which features touch it and why a drop occurs. That precision beats raw ACL counters when multiple policies (QoS, ZBFW, ACL, punt paths) may interact. Blanket debugs risk CPU spikes on production civic routers. Changing the ACL into a null route or clearing CEF obscures the original policy problem. Use Packet Trace as the targeted drop/path diagnostic on IOS XE.