Muting Rules control when Cribl Insights suppresses outbound notifications for matching alerts. They let you silence notifications during maintenance windows, noisy periods, or for specific alerts, without disabling Monitors or losing alert history.

When a Muting Rule applies:

• Monitors still evaluate and update alert state.
• Alerts still appear in Active Alerts and keep their status history.
• Notifications are not sent for the muted scope and time window.

This gives you precise control over noise without disabling the monitor.

How Muting Rules Work

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Muting Rules are evaluated before notification routing:

1. A Monitor changes an alert state.
2. If one or more Muting Rules match and are active:
   • The alert is considered muted for notification purposes.
   • No notification is sent, even if Notification Policies or direct targets would otherwise apply.
3. If no Muting Rule matches:
   • The alert proceeds to Notification Policies or Direct Target Assignment.
   • Matching policies and targets decide where to send notifications and how often.

Muting never stops evaluation or hides alerts from the Active Alerts page, it only affects delivery.

View and Manage Muting Rules

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To access Muting Rules:

1. Go to Insights > Alerts > Notification Settings.
2. Select the Muting Rules tab.

The table displays the Muting Rule:

• Status: Indicates whether the Muting Rule is currently active, scheduled for the future, or inactive/expired/disabled.
• Name: The Muting Rule name.
• Monitor: The name of the Monitor the rule applies to. This helps you quickly see which Monitor is affected.
• Duration: The time window the rule covers. Use this column to confirm that mutes are time-bounded and not effectively permanent.
• Created By: The user who created the Muting Rule.
• Actions: Option to delete the rule when it is no longer needed.

Create or Edit a Muting Rule

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You can create Muting Rules either from Notification Settings > Muting Rules or directly from an alert instance in the Active Alerts view.

When you create or edit a rule, you’ll configure:

• Name: Enter a clear name that describes why this mute exists.

• Monitor: Select the Monitor whose alerts you want to mute. The rule applies to all alerts generated by this Monitor for the duration you specify. If you need to mute multiple Monitors, create separate rules.

• Duration: Define how long the mute should be active. You can choose:

  • Relative: Select a relative time window such as:

    • 15 minutes
    • 1 hour
    • 3 hours
    • 1 day

    The mute starts when you save the rule and ends after the chosen duration.

  • Date Range: Specify a Start and End date/time explicitly. The rule is active only between those times.

• The Matched table shows how many Monitors and existing alerts currently match the rule’s scope:

  • Monitors: How many Monitors are in scope based on your current Monitor selection.
  • Alerts: How many current alerts from those Monitors would be muted if this rule were active now.

  
  Use this as a quick sanity check:

  • If the numbers stay at 0 Monitors 0 Alerts when you expect activity, confirm you selected the correct Monitor.
  • If the numbers are higher than expected, reconsider your scope or duration before saving.

Interaction with Notification Policies and Monitors

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Muting Rules sit in front of notification routing, affecting the delivery of alerts:

• If a Muting Rule matches:

  • The alert is still created and tracked in Active Alerts.
  • Notification policies and direct targets are not invoked for that alert during the mute window.

• If no Muting Rule matches:

  • Alerts proceed to Notification Policies (for Monitors using Route via Notification Policies) or to the Monitor Select Specific Notification Target.

Muting Rules never modify:

• Monitor configuration or thresholds.
• System metrics or evaluation.
• Historical alert data.

Best Practices

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By using Muting Rules carefully, you can keep notifications actionable and relevant while maintaining full visibility into alert history and system behavior.

• Use time-bounded mutes for maintenance
  For planned work, create Muting Rules with explicit start and end times that match the maintenance window. Avoid open-ended mutes.

• Review active mutes regularly
  Periodically check the Muting Rules tab to ensure no broad or long-lived rules remain active unintentionally.

• Do not use muting instead of tuning
  If a Monitor is consistently noisy under normal conditions, consider adjusting its thresholds, evaluation windows, or Notification Policies instead of permanently muting it.