Installing MariaDB on CentOS

# yum install mariadb mariadb-server

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/my.cnf

....

#
# include all files from the config directory
#
!includedir /etc/my.cnf.d

[root@localhost ~]# ls -l /etc/my.cnf.d/
total 16
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 295 Sep 12  2016 client.cnf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 232 Sep 12  2016 mysql-clients.cnf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 863 Sep  3  2016 server.cnf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 744 Jun 17  2016 server.cnf.org
[root@localhost ~]# 

Please add the following

[client]
default-character-set = utf8


[mysqld]
character-set-server = utf8

<code>
# systemctl status mariadb.service
# systemctl start mariadb.service
# systemctl status mariadb.service

# systemctl enable mariadb.service
<code>

MySQL