An ESM host associated with an IGMP policy or an MLD policy is sent host-based queries. A host-based query uses the intervals defined under the IGMP policy or MLD policy first, and if none are configured, it uses the interval values configured under the router IGMP or MLD context as a fallback. The router IGMP and MLD interval values are set to default values if none are configured. It is possible for the IGMP or MLD policy to only configure some of the query intervals while leaving other query intervals to use the values configured under the router IGMP or MLD context. For example, if the IGMP policy only has the query-interval configured to 11, the remaining query-last-member-interval and query-response-interval configurations uses values 1 and 10, respectively, defined under router igmp. It is also possible to configure an invalid combination of query timers when using both the IGMP policy configured intervals and intervals under router igmp. Using the example above, if the IGMP policy only sets the query-interval to 5, while the query-response-interval under router igmp is set to 10, this becomes an invalid combination because the response interval is longer than the query interval. When the system detects an invalid combination, it falls back and use all interval values configured under the router igmp or router mld context and ignores the interval configured under the IGMP or MLD policy. It is highly recommended that all three query intervals be configured together under the IGMP or MLD policy. To see the active values that each host is using for queries, use the show router igmp hosts detail or show router mld host command.