old_passwords

What is old_passwords?

With MySQL version 4.1 (published in 2004!) came a protocol change, which introduced a more secure password authentication. The variable old_password was added, which enables legacy support for the old password authentication but disables the new, more secure one. The old password authentication uses a very weak hashing which is why it is considered insecure. You should not use it, if you don't need legacy support!

Because it is insecure and deprecated Go-MySQL-Driver does not support this old password authentication system! In order to use this driver, you will need to disable old password (Disabled by default now on most installations).

How do I disable it?

Set old_passwords to false in your my.cnf (my.ini on Windows), MySQL's configuration file. On Linux you will find this file at /etc/my.cnf.

The var old_passwords belongs to the mysqld section, if you can't find it there, just add it:

[mysqld]
old_passwords = 0

You may also need to regenerate your passwords. See http://code.openark.org/blog/mysql/upgrading-passwords-from-old_passwords-to-new-passwords for a full manual on how to upgrade.