Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are provided for
path tracing proxy behavior using an external probing appliance. An example method can include generating, at an external probing appliance of a network, a probe packet, the probe packet including a
source address, a destination address, and a packet tracing indication in a next header field of the probe packet, the packet tracing indication triggering a proxy source behavior at a source node having the
source address and a proxy sink behavior at a sink node having the destination address; sending the probe packet to the source node to trigger a packet tracing mechanism; and receive an updated probe packet from the sink node, the updated probe packet including probe data associated with one or more data flows in the network as the one or more data flows
traverse the network from the source node to the sink node.