Here is a snippet of the code that I am using:

$t = new Net::Telnet( Timeout => $conn_timeout,
                  Errmode =>"return");

$firsttime = 0;
while (1) {

chomp( @target_list = <TARGET_FILE> );
close TARGET_FILE;
foreach $target ( @target_list ) {
        ( $target_ip, $target_name, $target_port ) = ( split /\s+/, $t
+arget );

        my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year) = gmtime(time());

        $mon += 1;
        $year += 1900;
        $time = ".$mon.$mday.$year.$hour:$min:$sec";
        $filename = ($dumpfilename .$target_name).$time;
        $t->dump_log($filename);
        $ok = $t->open(
                Host => $target_ip,
                Port => $target_port);
        if($ok)
        {
                if(!($t->waitfor(String=>$wait_string,
                                Timeout => $prompt_timeout)))
                {
                   if (($var=( $actualtime = time) - $firsttime) > $al
+arm_interval)
                        {
                          sendalarm( "agent process $target_name is no
+t running on $target_port",
                                "Agent-Process $target_name");
                          $alarm_flag=1;
                        }
                   # close tcp connection
                   $t->close();
                }
                else
                {
                        # we have found a valid prompt
                        $t->print("bye");
                        $t->close();

                        # remove dumpfile
                        unlink($filename);
                }
        }
  else
        {

                   if (($var = ( $actualtime = time) - $firsttime) > $
+alarm_interval)
                        {
                                sendalarm( "agent server $target_name 
+is not running on $target_port",
                                "Agent-Server $target_name");
                                $alarm_flag=1;
                        }
                unlink($filename);
        }
}
[download]

thank you for all the help