my.ini/my.cnf file not being honored (1 reply)

Hello,
In the past few days with MySQL installations to various servers were not keeping the settings I wrote into my.cnf (on Mac's) or (My.ini) on PC's. I suspect that rights are preventing MySQL from honoring these settings but want to pose these questions to the public.

How do I ask mysql where is the location of the "my" file it is listening to?
(within a cmd prompt) My question is to find the "my" file that Mysql is actually usng incase it is not using /etc/my.cnf....
How do I insure "root" is REALLY Super User? I have used> Grant All on *.*@"%" identified by % to make my user have superior powers but this is certainly not my wish.
Ultimatly I am attempting to change the folowing variables:
set global max_allowed_packet=300M 1024*1024
and
set global default-character-set=utf8;

Thanks in advance for your feedback.