diff --git a/ovsdb/ctl/src/main/java/org/onosproject/ovsdb/controller/impl/MessageDecoder.java b/ovsdb/ctl/src/main/java/org/onosproject/ovsdb/controller/impl/MessageDecoder.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0e2275
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ovsdb/ctl/src/main/java/org/onosproject/ovsdb/controller/impl/MessageDecoder.java
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2015 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.onosproject.ovsdb.controller.impl;
+
+import io.netty.buffer.ByteBuf;
+import io.netty.channel.ChannelHandlerContext;
+import io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder;
+
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.onosproject.ovsdb.rfc.jsonrpc.JsonReadContext;
+import org.onosproject.ovsdb.rfc.utils.JsonRpcReaderUtil;
+import org.slf4j.Logger;
+import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
+
+/**
+ * Decoder for inbound messages.
+ */
+public class MessageDecoder extends ByteToMessageDecoder {
+
+    private final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(MessageDecoder.class);
+    private final JsonReadContext context = new JsonReadContext();
+
+    /**
+     * Default constructor.
+     */
+    public MessageDecoder() {
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    protected void decode(ChannelHandlerContext ctx, ByteBuf buf,
+                          List<Object> out) throws Exception {
+        log.debug("Message decoder");
+        JsonRpcReaderUtil.readToJsonNode(buf, out, context);
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void exceptionCaught(ChannelHandlerContext context, Throwable cause) {
+        log.error("Exception inside channel handling pipeline.", cause);
+        context.close();
+    }
+}