Which NMAP feature prints live status messages about packet send/receive, protocol, and IP addresses?

• A. Verbose Mode
• B. Debug Mode
• C. Packet-Trace Option
• D. Script Output

Answer: (C)

Live packet-level tracing in Nmap is provided by the Packet Trace option. When enabled, it prints a running trace of each packet sent and each reply received, showing the protocol and the IP addresses involved. This gives you a real-time view of the scan traffic and how the target and any intermediaries respond, which is especially useful for debugging network behavior or firewall rules.

Verbose mode increases scan progress messages but doesn’t dump per-packet traffic. Debug mode adds extensive internal debugging information, which can include packet details but is more about Nmap’s internals than a clean packet-by-packet trace. Script output shows results from NSE scripts rather than raw packet activity.