Prior to configuring and running Spark History Server, Spark should be installed.

How to install Apache Spark 1.6.0 is described here.

How to install Apache spark 2.0 is described here.

Spark History server

Check that $SPARK_HOME/conf/spark-defaults.conf has History Server properties set

spark.eventLog.dir hdfs:///spark-history
spark.eventLog.enabled true
spark.history.fs.logDirectory hdfs:///spark-history
spark.history.provider org.apache.spark.deploy.history.FsHistoryProvider
spark.history.ui.port 18080

spark.history.kerberos.keytab none
spark.history.kerberos.principal none

Create spark-history directory in HDFS

sudo -u hdfs hadoop fs -mkdir /spark-history

Change the owner of the directory

sudo -u hdfs hadoop fs -chown spark:hdfs /spark-history

Change permission (be more restrictive if necessary)

sudo -u hdfs hadoop fs -chmod 777 /spark-history

Add user spark to group hdfs on the instance where Spark History Server is going to run

sudo usermod -a -G hdfs spark

To view Spark jobs from other users
When you open the History Server and you are not able to see Spark jobs you are expecting to see, check the Spark out file in the Spark log directory. If error message “Permission denied” is present, Spark History Server is trying to read the job log file, but has no permission to do so.
Spark user should be added to the group of the spark job owner.
For example, user marko belongs to a group employee. If marko starts a Spark job, the log file for this job will have user and group marko:employee. In order for spark to be able to read the log file, spark user should e added to the employee group. This is done in the following way

sudo usermod -a -G employee spark

Checking spark’s groups

groups spark

should return group employee among spark’s groups.

Start Spark History server

sudo -u spark $SPARK_HOME/sbin/start-history-server.sh

Output:

starting org.apache.spark.deploy.history.HistoryServer, logging to /var/log/spark/spark-spark-org.apache.spark.deploy.history.HistoryServer-1-t-client01.out

Accessing Spark History server from the web UI can be done by accessing spark-server:18080. The following screen should load.

A fresh Spark History Server installation has no applications to show (no applications in hdfs:/spark-history).

Spark History Server offers a great monitoring interface for Spark applications!

WARN ServletHandler: /api/v1/applications

If you happen to start Spark History Server but get neither completed nor incompleted applications on the Web UI, check the log files. If you get something like the following

WARN ServletHandler: /api/v1/applications
java.lang.NullPointerException
        at org.glassfish.jersey.servlet.ServletContainer.service(ServletContainer.java:388)
        at org.glassfish.jersey.servlet.ServletContainer.service(ServletContainer.java:341)
        at org.glassfish.jersey.servlet.ServletContainer.service(ServletContainer.java:228)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:812)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doHandle(ServletHandler.java:587)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doHandle(ContextHandler.java:1127)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doScope(ServletHandler.java:515)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doScope(ContextHandler.java:1061)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:141)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.servlets.gzip.GzipHandler.handle(GzipHandler.java:479)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandlerCollection.handle(ContextHandlerCollection.java:215)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:97)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.Server.handle(Server.java:499)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.HttpChannel.handle(HttpChannel.java:311)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.server.HttpConnection.onFillable(HttpConnection.java:257)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.io.AbstractConnection$2.run(AbstractConnection.java:544)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool.runJob(QueuedThreadPool.java:635)
        at org.spark_project.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool$3.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:555)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

Take the jersey-bundle-*.jar file out of the $SPARK_HOME/jars directory. Hortonworks dont need it, you dont need it 🙂