A network device management method for a first network device in autonomic networking includes obtaining management information of a service flow, the management information comprising a type of a management operation and an identifier of the service flow, and the first network device being an ingress network device of the service flow, determining a second network device on a forwarding path of the service flow based on the identifier of the service flow, the second network device being a next-hop network device of the first network device, sending a control packet having the management information to the second network device, the control packet indicating to the second network device to perform a management operation based on the type of the management operation and obtain information associated with the management operation, receiving, from the second network device, a response packet having information associated with the management operation.