Troubleshoot Cisco routers and switches using the debug commands - Part 1

Often, you cannot solve router and switch issues with “show” commands alone. At some point, you will have to use Debug commands to find out what is really going on behind the scenes. In this article, you will learn about Cisco IOS Debug commands and how they can help you.

What makes Cisco IOS Debug commands so useful?

Cisco IOS Show commands can tell you many things about what is going on with your router or switch, but they can’t tell you everything. For example, Show commands cannot tell you when routes drop in or out of the routing table, why an ISDN line failed to connect, whether a packet really went out the router, or what ICMP error code was received. On the other hand, Cisco IOS Debug commands can tell you all these things, and more.

Besides providing more detailed information than what Show commands can provide, Debug commands have the benefit of providing information in “real time” (or dynamically). This is contrary to Show commands that just take a snapshot in time and display the results on your console (somewhat static results). This real-time difference can be very helpful in diagnosing problems.