In Ansible inventory files, what do brackets signify?

In Ansible inventory files, brackets signify group names for classification. The use of brackets allows users to organize hosts into groups, making it easier to manage and apply playbooks to a set of devices. By grouping hosts with similar roles or configurations, Ansible enables the execution of tasks across many machines simultaneously, streamlining configuration management and orchestration.

For instance, you might see a section in an inventory file that looks like this:

[webservers]

host1

host2

In this example, "webservers" is a group name denoted by the brackets, and it includes hosts that can be targeted collectively in playbooks. This organizational capability is central to Ansible's functioning, allowing for better scalability and more efficient management of multiple systems.