The present solution relates to systems and methods for capturing and consolidating packet tracing in a cluster system. A multi-nodal cluster processing network traffic contains multiple nodes each handling some of the processing. A node may initially receive a flow and transfer processing of the flow to another node for processing. A flow may therefore pass from one node to another, from two nodes to many nodes. In some instances, it is helpful to generate a trace of a flow. For example, in debugging a network communication flow, a trace of the flow through the cluster can be helpful. Each node has a packet engine (“PE”) which processes data packets and can, when trace is enabled, generate a trace file for the packets processed at the respective node. A trace aggregator merges these distinct trace files into an aggregate trace for the cluster.