Glossary: TCP/IP in Depth, Part 2
DNS message sections
Also written: question section, answer section, authority section, additional section, four counts
After its 12-byte header, every DNS message has four sections: question, answer, authority (records naming the responsible servers) and additional (extra helpful records). The header counts each, and tcpdump prints the last three counts as answer/authority/additional, such as 1/0/0.