я лично сделал так:
foreveryoung ~ # cat ~icqbot/script
#!/usr/bin/perl
$_ = 1;
exit if( $#ARGV < 0 );
use File::Tail;
$name = "/home/icqbot/.micq/history/${ARGV[0]}.log";
my $ref=tie *FH,"File::Tail",(name=>$name, maxinterval=>1, interval=>1);
open LOG, ">${ARGV[0]}_bot.log";
$skip = 0;
$cmd = 0;
while( <FH> )
{
    if( $skip > 0 )
    {
        $skip--;
        next;
    }
    if( $_ =~ /# \d+\/ \[[^]]+\]\S+ -> [^[]*\[[^]]+\] [+](\d+)/ )
    {
        $skip = $1;
        $cmd = 0;
        next;
    }
    if( $_ =~ /# \d+\/ \[[^]]+\]\S+ <- [^[]*\[[^]]+\] [+](\d+)/ )
    {
        $cmd = 1;
        next;
    }
    if( !$cmd )
    {
        next;
    }
    if( $_ =~ /^ping (.+)$/ )
    {
        print LOG "Pinging $1\n";
        $ping = `ping -c 10 $1 2>&1`;
        open OUT, ">.micq/scripting";
        print OUT "/msg ${ARGV[0]}\n";
        print OUT $ping;
        print OUT ".\n";
        close OUT;
        next;
    }
}

а micq убирается в фон с помощью screen:
# screen -AmdS icq micq