@@ -105,8 +105,6 @@ import platform

 import tempfile

 import base64

-from ansible.module_utils.basic import get_distribution, get_exception

-

 try:

     import httplib

 except ImportError:

@@ -115,7 +113,9 @@ except ImportError:

 import ansible.module_utils.six.moves.urllib.request as urllib_request

 import ansible.module_utils.six.moves.urllib.error as urllib_error

+from ansible.module_utils.basic import get_distribution, get_exception

 from ansible.module_utils.six import b

+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_bytes

 try:

     # python3

@@ -672,10 +672,10 @@ class SSLValidationHandler(urllib_request.BaseHandler):

                     s.sendall(self.CONNECT_COMMAND % (self.hostname, self.port))

                     if proxy_parts.get('username'):

                         credentials = "%s:%s" % (proxy_parts.get('username',''), proxy_parts.get('password',''))

-                        s.sendall('Proxy-Authorization: Basic %s\r\n' % credentials.encode('base64').strip())

-                    s.sendall('\r\n')

-                    connect_result = ""

-                    while connect_result.find("\r\n\r\n") <= 0:

+                        s.sendall(b('Proxy-Authorization: Basic %s\r\n') % base64.b64encode(to_bytes(credentials, errors='surrogate_or_strict')).strip())

+                    s.sendall(b('\r\n'))

+                    connect_result = b("")

+                    while connect_result.find(b("\r\n\r\n")) <= 0:

                         connect_result += s.recv(4096)

                         # 128 kilobytes of headers should be enough for everyone.

                         if len(connect_result) > 131072:

@@ -883,7 +883,10 @@ def open_url(url, data=None, headers=None, method=None, use_proxy=True,

 def basic_auth_header(username, password):

-    return "Basic %s" % base64.b64encode("%s:%s" % (username, password))

+    """Takes a username and password and returns a byte string suitable for

+    using as value of an Authorization header to do basic auth.

+    """

+    return b("Basic %s") % base64.b64encode(to_bytes("%s:%s" % (username, password), errors='surrogate_or_strict'))

 def url_argument_spec():