PCNSE Manage, Monitor and Operate Practice Question
An engineer notices a decrease in network performance and wants to verify if a specific security policy is being triggered frequently. Which CLI command will show the hit count for a specific policy?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse 'show running security-policy' (which shows configuration) with 'show running security-policy hit-count' (which shows usage statistics), or they may incorrectly recall non-existent commands like 'show rule-usage' from other vendors.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
show running security-policy hit-count
The 'show running security-policy hit-count' command displays the hit count for each security policy rule, allowing the engineer to identify which specific policy is being triggered frequently. This command directly shows the number of times a rule has matched traffic, which is essential for diagnosing performance issues related to policy usage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
show security-rulebase
Why it's wrong here
This shows the rulebase content but no hit counts.
- ✗
show rule-usage
Why it's wrong here
This shows rule usage statistics but is not specific to a single policy.
- ✓
show running security-policy hit-count
Why this is correct
This shows hit counts for all security policies, and can be filtered to a specific rule.
- ✗
show running security-policy
Why it's wrong here
This shows the policy configuration but not hit counts.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCNSE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Palo Alto Networks certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PCNSE exam.