Comments - Configuring MariaDB with Option Files
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Be aware that the paths listed above are compile-time options, and may be different in your version, if you download and built using a package manager.
It gets particularly tricky if an earlier installation left a copy in the standard place (/etc/my.cnf), but your package manager thoughtfully hides it somewhere else. Then you'll go crazy modifying /etc/my.cnf, to no effect.
In my case, I had installed a Mac OS package from this site for an earlier version, which put everything where expected. Then MariaDB stopped supporting Mac OS binaries, and so I used homebrew to install 10.1.8, which then looked for my.cnf in /usr/local/etc/my.cnf.d/ . I spent HOURS trying to figure out why the variables I changed didn't happen!
A simple solution is to create a hard link in both locations: "ln /etc/my.cnf /usr/local/etc/my.cnf.d/". Now your config file both effects the running version, AND shows up where the Fine Manual tells you it should be!