diff --git a/swh/loader/debian/loader.py b/swh/loader/debian/loader.py
--- a/swh/loader/debian/loader.py
+++ b/swh/loader/debian/loader.py
@@ -22,9 +22,100 @@
 
 from . import converters
 
+from sqlalchemy import create_engine
+from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
+from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker
 
 UPLOADERS_SPLIT = re.compile(r'(?<=\>)\s*,\s*')
 
+db_engine = create_engine('postgresql+psycopg2:///test_lister')
+Base = declarative_base(db_engine)
+
+
+class package(Base):
+    __tablename__ = 'package_repo'
+    __table_args__ = {'autoload': True}
+
+
+def get_pkg_information():
+    """
+    Get the list of source packages from the lister table.
+
+    Args: None
+
+    Returns: list of packages dict with the following keys:
+                html_url: url to .dsc file
+                name: source package name
+                version: source package version
+
+    """
+    mk_session = sessionmaker(bind=db_engine)
+    db_session = mk_session()
+    data = db_session.query(package)
+    packages = []
+    for entries in data:
+        initial_url = entries.html_url + entries.directory
+        download_url = initial_url + '/' + entries.package_version + '.dsc'
+        package_list = {'name': entries.name,
+                        'version': entries.version, 'html_url': download_url}
+        packages.append(package_list)
+    return(packages)
+
+
+class PackageDownloadFailed(Exception):
+    """Raise this exception when a package Download failed"""
+    pass
+
+
+def download_src_pkg(package, basedir, log=None):
+    """Download a Debian source package to the basedir/package_version
+
+    Args:
+        package: a dict with the following keys:
+            html_url: url to .dsc file
+            name: source package name
+            version: source package version
+        basedir : the directory where the package gets downloaded
+        log: a logging.Logger object
+
+    Returns: None
+
+    """
+
+    dirname = os.path.join(basedir.decode('utf-8'),
+                           '%s_%s' % (package['name'], package['version']))
+    os.makedirs(dirname, exist_ok=True)
+
+    intended_dsc = '%s_%s.dsc' % (package['name'], package['version'])
+    dsc_path = os.path.join(dirname, intended_dsc)
+
+    download_url = package['html_url']
+    if log:
+        log.debug('Download Debian source package %s in %s' %
+                  (download_url, basedir.decode('utf-8')), extra={
+                    'swh_type': 'deb_extract',
+                    'swh_url': download_url,
+                    'swh_basedir': basedir.decode('utf-8'),
+                    })
+    logfile = b''.join([basedir, b'.log'])
+    os.chdir(dirname)
+    cmd = ['dget', '-u', '-d', download_url]
+    package['dsc'] = dsc_path
+    try:
+        with open(logfile, 'w') as stdout:
+            subprocess.check_call(cmd, stdout=stdout, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
+    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
+        if log:
+            data = open(logfile, 'r').read()
+            log.warn('Downloading Debian package %s failed: %s' %
+                     (download_url, data),
+                     extra={
+                        'swh_type': 'deb_download_failed',
+                        'swh_url': download_url,
+                        'swh_log': data,
+                     })
+        raise PackageDownloadFailed()
+
 
 class PackageExtractionFailed(Exception):
     """Raise this exception when a package extraction failed"""