Index: Lib/urllib2.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/urllib2.py	(revision 88378)
+++ Lib/urllib2.py	(working copy)
@@ -805,10 +805,10 @@
     # XXX this allows for multiple auth-schemes, but will stupidly pick
     # the last one with a realm specified.
 
-    # allow for double- and single-quoted realm values
-    # (single quotes are a violation of the RFC, but appear in the wild)
-    rx = re.compile('(?:.*,)*[ \t]*([^ \t]+)[ \t]+'
-                    'realm=(["\'])(.*?)\\2', re.I)
+    # allow for single-quoted, double-quoted and unquoted realm values
+    # (single quotes and unquoted are a violation of the RFC, but appear in
+    # the wild), quotes stripped below
+    rx = re.compile('(?:.*,)*[ \t]*([^ \t]+)[ \t]+realm=(.*)', re.I)
 
     # XXX could pre-emptively send auth info already accepted (RFC 2617,
     # end of section 2, and section 1.2 immediately after "credentials"
@@ -837,7 +837,13 @@
         if authreq:
             mo = AbstractBasicAuthHandler.rx.search(authreq)
             if mo:
-                scheme, quote, realm = mo.groups()
+                scheme, realm = mo.groups()
+                realm = realm.strip()
+                if len(realm) > 1 and (
+                    (realm[0], realm[-1]) == ("'", "'") or
+                    (realm[0], realm[-1]) == ('"', '"')):
+                    realm = realm[1:-1]
+
                 if scheme.lower() == 'basic':
                     return self.retry_http_basic_auth(host, req, realm)
 
Index: Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/test/test_urllib2.py	(revision 88378)
+++ Lib/test/test_urllib2.py	(working copy)
@@ -1043,6 +1043,9 @@
     def test_basic_auth_with_single_quoted_realm(self):
         self.test_basic_auth(quote_char="'")
 
+    def test_basic_auth_with_unquoted_realm(self):
+        self.test_basic_auth(quote_char='')
+
     def test_proxy_basic_auth(self):
         opener = OpenerDirector()
         ph = urllib2.ProxyHandler(dict(http="proxy.example.com:3128"))