Hi Enrique,
I have finally got the backups working using root as you have suggested and I can run the command "nbmariadb -o backup" and the db back ups run. I have specified a user in the nbmariadb.conf and I am assuming that this is the user that is performing the backup of the mariadb even thought the command was run as root. What I need to workout now is whether I run the backups from the crontab or run from a schedule in NetBackup using the script from tech article 100041621. The architect wants backup every 15 mins as this will be a P1 application. I hope to do a proper write up of the procedure that worked for me. It has been a learning curve in Linux and database application backups. Our DBA's which we have been predominately MS SQL have always favoured the dump to flat files and I hoover them up, so quite a change for both teams.