diff --git a/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.c b/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.c
index 215a87b59..33d7ad12f 100644
--- a/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.c
+++ b/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.c
@@ -2505,6 +2505,59 @@ _nm_utils_unescape_plain (char *str, const char *candidates, gboolean do_strip)
 	return str;
 }
 
+char *
+nm_utils_str_simpletokens_extract_next (char **p_line_start)
+{
+	char *s_next;
+	char *s_start;
+	gsize j;
+
+	s_start = *p_line_start;
+	if (!s_start)
+		return NULL;
+
+	s_start = nm_str_skip_leading_spaces (s_start);
+
+	if (s_start[0] == '\0') {
+		*p_line_start = s_start;
+		return NULL;
+	}
+
+	s_next = s_start;
+	j = 0;
+	while (TRUE) {
+		if (s_next[0] == '\0') {
+			s_start[j] = '\0';
+			*p_line_start = s_next;
+			return s_start;
+		}
+		if (s_next[0] == '\\') {
+			s_next++;
+			if (s_next[0] == '\0') {
+				/* trailing backslash at end of word. That's an error,
+				 * but we silently drop the backslash and signal success. */
+				*p_line_start = s_next;
+				if (j == 0)
+					return NULL;
+				s_start[j] = '\0';
+				return s_start;
+			}
+
+			s_start[j++] = (s_next++)[0];
+			continue;
+		}
+		if (!g_ascii_isspace (s_next[0])) {
+			s_start[j++] = (s_next++)[0];
+			continue;
+		}
+
+		nm_assert (j > 0);
+		s_start[j] = '\0';
+		*p_line_start = nm_str_skip_leading_spaces (&s_next[1]);
+		return s_start;
+	}
+}
+
 /*****************************************************************************/
 
 typedef struct {
diff --git a/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.h b/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.h
index fae0abe82..af9e1cf6e 100644
--- a/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.h
+++ b/shared/nm-utils/nm-shared-utils.h
@@ -446,6 +446,8 @@ int nm_utils_dbus_path_cmp (const char *dbus_path_a, const char *dbus_path_b);
 
 const char **nm_utils_strsplit_set (const char *str, const char *delimiters, gboolean allow_escaping);
 
+char *nm_utils_str_simpletokens_extract_next (char **p_line_start);
+
 gssize nm_utils_strv_find_first (char **list, gssize len, const char *needle);
 
 char **_nm_utils_strv_cleanup (char **strv,