diff --git a/ubuntutools/utils.py b/ubuntutools/utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dcc354e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ubuntutools/utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+# Copyright (C) 2019-2023 Canonical Ltd.
+# Author: Brian Murray <brian.murray@canonical.com> et al.
+
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation; version 3 of the License.
+#
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+"""Portions of archive related code that is re-used by various tools."""
+
+from datetime import datetime
+import os
+import re
+import urllib.request
+
+import dateutil.parser
+from dateutil.tz import tzutc
+
+
+def get_cache_dir():
+    cache_dir = os.environ.get('XDG_CACHE_HOME',
+                               os.path.expanduser(os.path.join('~', '.cache')))
+    uat_cache = os.path.join(cache_dir, 'ubuntu-archive-tools')
+    os.makedirs(uat_cache, exist_ok=True)
+    return uat_cache
+
+
+def get_url(url, force_cached):
+    ''' Return file to the URL, possibly caching it
+    '''
+    cache_file = None
+
+    # ignore bileto urls wrt caching, they're usually too small to matter
+    # and we don't do proper cache expiry
+    m = re.search('ubuntu-archive-team.ubuntu.com/proposed-migration/'
+                  '([^/]*)/([^/]*)',
+                  url)
+    if m:
+        cache_dir = get_cache_dir()
+        cache_file = os.path.join(cache_dir, '%s_%s' % (m.group(1), m.group(2)))
+    else:
+        # test logs can be cached, too
+        m = re.search(
+            'https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-[^/]*/([^/]*)/([^/]*)'
+            '/[a-z0-9]*/([^/]*)/([_a-f0-9]*)@/log.gz',
+            url)
+        if m:
+            cache_dir = get_cache_dir()
+            cache_file = os.path.join(
+                cache_dir, '%s_%s_%s_%s.gz' % (
+                    m.group(1), m.group(2), m.group(3), m.group(4)))
+
+    if cache_file:
+        try:
+            prev_mtime = os.stat(cache_file).st_mtime
+        except FileNotFoundError:
+            prev_mtime = 0
+        prev_timestamp = datetime.fromtimestamp(prev_mtime, tz=tzutc())
+        new_timestamp = datetime.now(tz=tzutc()).timestamp()
+        if force_cached:
+            return open(cache_file, 'rb')
+
+    f = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
+
+    if cache_file:
+        remote_ts = dateutil.parser.parse(f.headers['last-modified'])
+        if remote_ts > prev_timestamp:
+            with open('%s.new' % cache_file, 'wb') as new_cache:
+                for line in f:
+                    new_cache.write(line)
+            os.rename('%s.new' % cache_file, cache_file)
+            os.utime(cache_file, times=(new_timestamp, new_timestamp))
+        f.close()
+        f = open(cache_file, 'rb')
+    return f