--- a/bitten/slave.py
+++ b/bitten/slave.py
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 from bitten.build.config import Configuration, ConfigFileNotFound
 from bitten.recipe import Recipe
 from bitten.util import xmlio
+from bitten.util.compat import HTTPBasicAuthHandler
 
 EX_OK = getattr(os, "EX_OK", 0)
 EX_UNAVAILABLE = getattr(os, "EX_UNAVAILABLE", 69)
@@ -262,7 +263,7 @@
 
     def _get_opener(self):
         opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPErrorProcessor())
-        opener.add_handler(urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler(self.password_mgr))
+        opener.add_handler(HTTPBasicAuthHandler(self.password_mgr))
         opener.add_handler(urllib2.HTTPDigestAuthHandler(self.password_mgr))
         opener.add_handler(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(self.cookiejar))
         return opener

new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bitten/util/compat.py
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+#
+# Copyright (C) 2011 Edgewall Software
+# All rights reserved.
+#
+# This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which
+# you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms
+# are also available at http://bitten.edgewall.org/wiki/License.
+
+"""Compatibility fixes for external libraries and Python."""
+
+import sys
+
+# Fix for issue http://bugs.python.org/issue8797 in Python 2.6
+
+if sys.version_info[:2] == (2, 6):
+    import urllib2
+    import base64
+
+    class HTTPBasicAuthHandler(urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler):
+        """Patched version of Python 2.6's HTTPBasicAuthHandler.
+        
+        The fix for [1]_ introduced an infinite recursion bug [2]_ into
+        Python 2.6.x that is triggered by attempting to connect using
+        Basic authentication with a bad username and/or password. This
+        class fixes the problem using the simple solution outlined in [3]_.
+        
+        .. [1] http://bugs.python.org/issue3819
+        .. [2] http://bugs.python.org/issue8797
+        .. [3] http://bugs.python.org/issue8797#msg126657
+        """
+
+        def retry_http_basic_auth(self, host, req, realm):
+            user, pw = self.passwd.find_user_password(realm, host)
+            if pw is not None:
+                raw = "%s:%s" % (user, pw)
+                auth = 'Basic %s' % base64.b64encode(raw).strip()
+                if req.get_header(self.auth_header, None) == auth:
+                    return None
+                req.add_unredirected_header(self.auth_header, auth)
+                return self.parent.open(req, timeout=req.timeout)
+            else:
+                return None
+
+else:
+    from urllib2 import HTTPBasicAuthHandler