Question about nice command

How do I decrease the niceness for sendmail, so senmail will have a higher priority.
I run several opt-in email lists and would like the mail to go out faster.

First off, I can't help you with Sendmail specific configuration.

>> would like the mail to go out faster

There are two different routes:

1) messages to sendmail queue (waiting to be processed)
2) processing messages in sendmail queue

Keep in mind, messages don't directly delivered to the remote hosts in most cases.

For (1), in your script, avoid customized envelope recipients. Use CC. This speeds up the I/O part.

For (2):

- disable ident and block incoming tcp 113 + send a RST in return. Here is an example of blocking ident in ipfilter:

block return-rst in quick on rl0 proto tcp from any to 12.34.56.78/32 port = 113 flags S

- do not configure sendmail to be paranoid (do a search on this). This helps for both incoming+ougoing.

- run a dns cache locally. Don't use ISP's nameserver. dnscache would be perfect.

If you really want to speed up the delivery, consider ditching sendmail and give qmail a try.

BTW, I know you are a BSD user, but please don't treat this forum as your catch-all forum to post to. You should post this kind of message to Mail server forum.