Golang how to open a remote mysql connection?

These sites are both really helpful in understanding Go SQL: https://github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql/ (even if you are using a different driver) and http://go-database-sql.org/

There are a few things that might help:

1. The connection string for sql.Open() is in DSN format. db, err := sql.Open("mysql", "<username>:<pw>@tcp(<HOST>:<port>)/<dbname>") works for me for my connections. Check the use of parenthesis for TCP connections.
2. The driver you are using has the command mysql.New() which can open connections using the format you've listed above: db := mysql.New(proto, "", addr, user, pass, dbname)
3. Confusingly, sql.Open doesn't actually open a connection, it just creates a db resource. You can verify that it's working by running db.Ping()

Following statement works for me:

import (
    "database/sql"
    _ "github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql"
)

db, err := sql.Open("mysql", "db_user:password@tcp(localhost:3306)/my_db")

)