If the machines have different names (assuming a normal network :o)), don't you just need to do this? (continued from ZZamboni's code)

foreach $f (@files) {
  open FILE, $f or die "Error: $!";
  while(<FILE>) {
    chomp;
    my ($k,$v)=split("=",$_,2);
    # Assume dn= comes before other lines
    if ($k eq "dn") {
      push(@machines,$k);
      $machine = $k;
    } else {
       push(@{$machine}{$k},$v);
    }
  }
  close FILE;
}
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In this case you would end up with almost the same effect:

@machines = ('machinename','machinename2');
${'machinename'}{'config'}   = 2000;
${'machinename'}{'speed'}    = 19600;
${'machinename'}{'setting'}  = value1, value2, value3;
${'machinename2'}{'config'}  = 2020;
${'machinename2'}{'speed'}   = 19600;
${'machinename2'}{'setting'} = value1, value2, value3;
etc...
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Points being:
1. do you have to name a hash?
2. is it better to have @machines?

I'm starting to wonder about this too...