diff --git a/utils/misc/BUCK b/utils/misc/BUCK
index 5b06b9c..aef407f 100644
--- a/utils/misc/BUCK
+++ b/utils/misc/BUCK
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
     '//lib:METRICS',
     '//lib:KRYO',
     '//lib:netty',
+    '//lib:JACKSON',
 ]
 
 osgi_jar_with_tests(
diff --git a/utils/misc/src/main/java/org/onlab/util/Tools.java b/utils/misc/src/main/java/org/onlab/util/Tools.java
index 057441e..ebcf472 100644
--- a/utils/misc/src/main/java/org/onlab/util/Tools.java
+++ b/utils/misc/src/main/java/org/onlab/util/Tools.java
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@
  */
 package org.onlab.util;
 
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ObjectNode;
 import com.google.common.base.Charsets;
 import com.google.common.base.Strings;
 import com.google.common.collect.Lists;
@@ -24,6 +26,7 @@
 
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
 import java.nio.file.FileVisitResult;
 import java.nio.file.Files;
@@ -73,6 +76,8 @@
 
     private static Random random = new Random();
 
+    private static final String INPUT_JSON_CANNOT_BE_NULL = "Input JSON cannot be null";
+
     /**
      * Returns a thread factory that produces threads named according to the
      * supplied name pattern.
@@ -216,6 +221,19 @@
     }
 
     /**
+     * Utility to convert a mapper and an input stream into a JSON tree,
+     * and be tolerant of a null tree being returned.
+     *
+     * @param mapper JSON object mapper
+     * @param stream IO stream containing the JSON
+     * @return object node for the given
+     * @throws IOException if JSON parsing fails
+     */
+    public static ObjectNode readTreeFromStream(ObjectMapper mapper, InputStream stream) throws IOException {
+        return  nullIsIllegal((ObjectNode) mapper.readTree(stream), INPUT_JSON_CANNOT_BE_NULL);
+    }
+
+    /**
      * Converts a string from hex to long.
      *
      * @param string hex number in string form; sans 0x