diff --git a/BUILD/install_build_deps.sh b/BUILD/install_build_deps.sh
index 64d54048e..810bbf718 100755
--- a/BUILD/install_build_deps.sh
+++ b/BUILD/install_build_deps.sh
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ then
        build-essential libssl-dev ncurses-dev bison flex \
        perl libtool libpcre3-dev tcl tcl-dev uuid \
        uuid-dev libsqlite3-dev liblzma-dev libpam0g-dev pkg-config \
-       libedit-dev
+       libedit-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev
 
   ## separatelibgnutls installation process for Ubuntu Trusty
   cat /etc/*release | grep -E "Trusty|wheezy"
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ else
          make libtool libopenssl-devel libaio libaio-devel flex \
          pcre-devel git wget tcl libuuid-devel \
          xz-devel sqlite3 sqlite3-devel pkg-config lua lua-devel \
-         gnutls-devel libgcrypt-devel pam-devel
+         gnutls-devel libgcrypt-devel pam-devel libcurl-devel
     sudo zypper -n install rpm-build
     cat /etc/*-release | grep "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11"
 
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ else
          libedit-devel systemtap-sdt-devel rpm-sign wget \
          gnupg pcre-devel flex rpmdevtools git wget tcl openssl libuuid-devel xz-devel \
          sqlite sqlite-devel pkgconfig lua lua-devel rpm-build createrepo yum-utils \
-         gnutls-devel libgcrypt-devel pam-devel
+         gnutls-devel libgcrypt-devel pam-devel libcurl-devel
 
     # Attempt to install libasan, it'll only work on CentOS 7
     sudo yum install -y --nogpgcheck libasan
diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 093c8d64e..7553b86de 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ find_package(GSSAPI)
 find_package(SQLite)
 find_package(ASAN)
 find_package(TSAN)
+find_package(CURL)
 
 # Build PCRE2 so we always know the version
 # Read BuildPCRE2 for details about how to add pcre2 as a dependency to a target
diff --git a/Documentation/Getting-Started/Building-MaxScale-from-Source-Code.md b/Documentation/Getting-Started/Building-MaxScale-from-Source-Code.md
index be7621fab..c40021e94 100644
--- a/Documentation/Getting-Started/Building-MaxScale-from-Source-Code.md
+++ b/Documentation/Getting-Started/Building-MaxScale-from-Source-Code.md
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ requirements are as follows:
 * Flex 2.5.35 or later
 * libuuid
 * GNUTLS
+* libcurl
 
 This is the minimum set of requirements that must be met to build the MaxScale
 core package.
diff --git a/include/maxscale/utils.hh b/include/maxscale/utils.hh
index 34821ad58..a87d5c4ef 100644
--- a/include/maxscale/utils.hh
+++ b/include/maxscale/utils.hh
@@ -22,12 +22,14 @@
 #include <array>
 #include <functional>
 #include <iterator>
+#include <memory>
 #include <string>
 #include <unordered_map>
 #include <vector>
 
 #include <maxscale/buffer.h>
 #include <maxscale/utils.h>
+#include <maxscale/jansson.hh>
 
 namespace maxscale
 {
@@ -645,4 +647,26 @@ uint64_t get_byteN(const uint8_t* ptr, int bytes);
  */
 uint8_t* set_byteN(uint8_t* ptr, uint64_t value, int bytes);
 
+namespace http
+{
+
+struct Result
+{
+    int code; // HTTP response code
+    std::string raw_body; // Raw response body
+    std::unique_ptr<json_t> body; // JSON form of the body if it was valid JSON
+    std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string> headers; // Headers attached to the response
+};
+
+/**
+ * Do a HTTP GET
+ *
+ * @param url     URL to use
+ *
+ * @return A Result
+ */
+Result get(const std::string& url);
+
+}
+
 }
diff --git a/server/core/CMakeLists.txt b/server/core/CMakeLists.txt
index 2d3f7ce9b..c86a0c101 100644
--- a/server/core/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/server/core/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ target_link_libraries(maxscale-common
   gnutls
   gcrypt
   ${MICROHTTPD_LIBRARIES}
+  ${CURL_LIBRARIES}
 )
 
 find_library(HAVE_LIBDL NAMES dl)
diff --git a/server/core/utils.cc b/server/core/utils.cc
index 5f0130afa..4d77fa8f7 100644
--- a/server/core/utils.cc
+++ b/server/core/utils.cc
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@
 #include <sys/types.h>
 #include <netinet/tcp.h>
 #include <openssl/sha.h>
+#include <curl/curl.h>
 
 #include <maxscale/alloc.h>
 #include <maxscale/config.h>
@@ -1198,4 +1199,84 @@ std::string string_printf(const char* format, ...)
     return rval;
 }
 
+namespace
+{
+
+size_t write_callback(char *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userdata)
+{
+    std::string* buf = static_cast<std::string*>(userdata);
+
+    if (nmemb > 0)
+    {
+        buf->append(ptr, nmemb);
+    }
+
+    return nmemb;
+}
+
+size_t header_callback(char *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userdata)
+{
+    std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string>* map =
+        static_cast<std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string>*>(userdata);
+
+    if (nmemb > 0)
+    {
+        std::string data(ptr, size * nmemb);
+        auto pos = data.find_first_of(':');
+
+        if (pos != std::string::npos)
+        {
+            std::string key = data.substr(0, pos);
+            std::string value = data.substr(pos + 1);
+            trim(key);
+            trim(value);
+            map->insert(std::make_pair(key, value));
+        }
+    }
+
+    return nmemb * size;
+}
+
+}
+
+namespace http
+{
+
+Result get(const std::string& url)
+{
+    Result res;
+    char errbuf[CURL_ERROR_SIZE + 1] = "";
+    CURL* curl = curl_easy_init();
+
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER, errbuf);
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, write_callback);
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, &res.raw_body);
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, url.c_str());
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_HEADERFUNCTION, header_callback);
+    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_HEADERDATA, &res.headers);
+
+    long code = 0; // needs to be a long
+
+    if (curl_easy_perform(curl) == CURLE_OK)
+    {
+        curl_easy_getinfo(curl, CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE, &code);
+        res.code = code;
+    }
+    else
+    {
+        res.code = -1;
+        res.raw_body = errbuf;
+    }
+
+    // Even the errors are valid JSON so this should be OK
+    json_error_t err;
+    res.body.reset(json_loads(res.raw_body.c_str(), 0, &err));
+
+    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
+
+    return std::move(res);
+}
+
+}
+
 }