An engineer is troubleshooting an ongoing network outage. Which command should he use that can display the live log files for a process or service running on a network device?

Question

Options

• Atraceroute
• Bshow run
• Cping
• Ddebug

• B
  5% (1)
• D
  95% (20)

Explanation

debug is correct because it enables real-time, live output of events and processes on network devices (typically Cisco IOS), letting engineers observe what a service is doing moment-by-moment during an active issue - essentially streaming log data to the console.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A. traceroute maps the hop-by-hop path packets take to a destination; it diagnoses routing, not live service logs.
• B. show run displays the current running configuration (static snapshot), not live process activity.
• C. ping tests basic reachability/latency to a host; it tells you if something is reachable, not what a process is doing internally.

Memory tip: Think of the word "debug" itself - it means actively hunting bugs as they happen. The debug command is the only option that watches rather than asks, making it the go-to for live, real-time troubleshooting. On Cisco devices, remember to always run undebug all after you're done, as leaving debug enabled can overwhelm the CPU.

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