I am stuck with mysql_connect

Hi, I am stuck connecting to a remote server by using mysql_connect. My scripts run fine when they are uploaded to the remote server. But if I try to connect to the remote server from my local server, mysql_connect gives me an error saying that the host could not be found, although the name of the host is correct. The code looks something like this <?php echo "now connecting to remote server"; $result=mysql_connect("www.hostname.com:2900", "loginname" , $str );//str is the password if($result) echo " Connected"; else echo " not connected"; ?> Will anyone explain what is path/to/socket and can it be used in this case. Regards, Mandar