So you were onto it. It was a security limitation. There are no users with server wide permissions by default. The following posts helped me. Really no different than MySQL but a little security change makes setup, longer… :ugeek:
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/configuring-mariadb-for-remote-client-access/
http://www.daniloaz.com/en/how-to-create-a-user-in-mysql-mariadb-and-grant-permissions-on-a-specific-database/