# Notary service in chains [Notary service](https://github.com/neo-project/neo/issues/1573#issuecomment-704874472) is a service that provides on-chain network assistance to form multisignature transactions. Inner Ring (Alphabet) nodes use multisignature transactions to create containers, approve balance changes, update network map, tick epochs, etc. With notary service, it takes up to seven times fewer transactions to do these operations. Notary service calculates the exact amount of GAS to execute transaction, therefore operations are cheaper (withdraw fee **with** notary is less than 0.5 GAS; withdraw fee **without** notary is up to 7.0 GAS). By default, main chain service is running without notary service, and side chain running with notary service. However, you can change that in configuration. # Disable notary service in side chain To disable notary service in side chain do these steps. 1. Update `.env` and choose notary disabled chain dump for side chain. ``` MORPH_CHAIN_URL="https://github.com/nspcc-dev/neofs-contract/releases/download/v0.9.0/devenv_sidechain_notary_disabled.gz" ``` Make sure to update chain dump files with `make get` target. 2. Update `service/morph_chain/protocol.privnet.yml` and disable notary settings and state root in header. ```yaml ProtocolConfiguration: StateRootInHeader: false P2PSigExtensions: false ApplicationConfiguration: P2PNotary: Enabled: false ``` Chain dump without notary service does not have predefined network map. Therefore, you need to wait about 5 minutes until new epoch tick with updated network map. 3. Enable helper commands To enable helper commands such as `make tick.epoch` or `make update.epoch_duration` make sure to export non-empty `FROSTFS_NOTARY_DISABLED` environment variable. ``` $ export FROSTFS_NOTARY_DISABLED=1 ``` Use `unset` command to return it back. ``` $ unset FROSTFS_NOTARY_DISABLED ``` # Enable notary service in main chain To enable notary service in main chain do these steps. 1. Update `.env` and choose notary enabled chain dump for main chain. ``` CHAIN_URL="https://github.com/nspcc-dev/neofs-contract/releases/download/v0.9.0/devenv_mainchain.gz" ``` Make sure to update chain dump files with `make get` target. 2. Update `service/chain/protocol.privnet.yml` and enable notary settings. ```yaml ProtocolConfiguration: P2PSigExtensions: true ApplicationConfiguration: P2PNotary: Enabled: true ``` Main chain generates a block once per 15 seconds, so Inner Ring takes about 15-30 seconds to make a notary deposit in main chain after startup. Then frostfs-dev-env is ready to work.