Thank you so much for responding ... I'll try to work on it this weekend to convert from bash to perl. And good call with the log rotating. :) If anyone is interested, here is my bash script:

#!/bin/bash

string="connection_input: conn=11"

tail -n 0 -F /var/log/ldap.log | \
while read LINE
do
echo "$LINE" | grep -q $string
if [ $? = 0 ]
then
echo -e "$string found on $HOSTNAME" | mail -s "LDAP authentication on
+ $(hostname)" teamsupport@yourdomain.com
fi
done
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But I have to start it with a no hangup script

#!/bin/bash

nohup ./ldap_log_reader.sh 0<&- &>/dev/null &
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