A network verification tool is presented that allows a user to easily create tasks for a collection of task types. The collection of task types are hosted by probe network devices that are coupled to a network under test. The network under test includes network devices executing generic network software and particular hardware or software that is being tested. The probe network devices are coupled to an NVT server, which transmits tasks to the task types and interfaces with one or more NVT clients. The NVT clients can create tasks by entering the appropriate parameters within templates supplied by the NVT server. Any collection of task types can be included in the network verification tool, including traffic generators, traffic analyzers, large network emulators, session emulators, device queries and script tasks.