diff --git a/web/api/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/rest/exceptions/AbstractMapper.java b/web/api/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/rest/exceptions/AbstractMapper.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50c27ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/api/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/rest/exceptions/AbstractMapper.java
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2014 Open Networking Laboratory
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.onlab.onos.rest.exceptions;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ObjectNode;
+
+import javax.ws.rs.core.Response;
+import javax.ws.rs.ext.ExceptionMapper;
+
+/**
+ * Base exception mapper implementation.
+ */
+public abstract class AbstractMapper<E extends Throwable> implements ExceptionMapper<E> {
+
+    /**
+     * Returns the response status to be given when the exception occurs.
+     *
+     * @return response status
+     */
+    protected abstract Response.Status responseStatus();
+
+    @Override
+    public Response toResponse(E exception) {
+        return response(responseStatus(), exception).build();
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Produces a response builder primed with the supplied status code
+     * and JSON entity with the status code and exception message.
+     *
+     * @param status    response status
+     * @param exception exception to encode
+     * @return response builder
+     */
+    protected Response.ResponseBuilder response(Response.Status status,
+                                                Throwable exception) {
+        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
+        ObjectNode result = mapper.createObjectNode()
+                .put("code", status.getStatusCode())
+                .put("message", exception.getMessage());
+        return Response.status(status).entity(result.toString());
+    }
+}