I had a thread regarding this in the user group and I was able to workaround on 0.6.1 build by setting SPARK_HOME. As there is no workaround in latest snapshot build, I'm sending this to the dev group. You may need to have a secure(kerberos) cluster behind a proxy to reproduce these inconsistencies/issues with spark interpreter.
*0.7 latest Snapshot:* When I git clone & build the 0.7 snapshot and run spark interpreter in local mode after copying hive_site.xml to conf directory with just one HADOOP_CONF_DIR property set in zeppelin-env.sh, I'm able to run a spark paragraph to test the interpreter, but it doesn't talk to my cluster, it runs in a standalone mode and shows only "default" database when executing *z.show(sql("show databases"))*. *Now when I set the SPARK_HOME variable in zeppelin-env.sh and restart, I get the stack trace cascaded below.* *0.6.1 build: *When I download the 0.6.1 source and run spark interpreter in local mode after copying hive_site.xml to conf directory with just one HADOOP_CONF_DIR property set in zeppelin-env.sh, I'm able to run a spark paragraph to test the interpreter, but it doesn't talk to my cluster, it runs in a standalone mode and shows only "default" database when executing *z.show(sql("show databases"))*. *Now when I set the SPARK_HOME variable in zeppelin-env.sh and restart, the spark interpreter is able to talk to my cluster and show all my databases in the cluster* *0.5.6 build *When I download the 0.5.6 source and run spark interpreter in local mode after copying hive_site.xml to conf directory with just one HADOOP_CONF_DIR property set in zeppelin-env.sh, I'm able to run a spark paragraph to test the interpreter, *and it talks to my cluster without even setting "SPARK_HOME" environment variable where I can see all my databases when executing **z.show(sql("show databases"))* started by scheduler org.apache.zeppelin.spark.SparkInterpreter335845091 ERROR [2016-08-30 17:45:37,237] ({pool-2-thread-2} Job.java[run]:189) - Job failed java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid rule: L RULE:[2:$1@$0](.*@\Q<DOMAIN1>.COM\E$)s/@\Q<DOMAIN1>\E$//L RULE:[1:$1@$0](.*@\Q<DOMAIN2>\E$)s/@\Q<DOMAIN2>\E$//L RULE:[2:$1@$0](.*@\Q<DOMAIN2>\E$)s/@\Q<DOMAIN2>\E$//L DEFAULT at org.apache.hadoop.security.authentication.util.KerberosName. parseRules(KerberosName.java:321) at org.apache.hadoop.security.authentication.util.KerberosName. setRules(KerberosName.java:386) at org.apache.hadoop.security.HadoopKerberosName.setConfigurati on(HadoopKerberosName.java:75) at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.initialize(U serGroupInformation.java:227) at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.ensureInitia lized(UserGroupInformation.java:214) at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.isAuthentica tionMethodEnabled(UserGroupInformation.java:275) at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.isSecurityEn abled(UserGroupInformation.java:269) at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.loginUserFro mKeytab(UserGroupInformation.java:820) at org.apache.zeppelin.spark.SparkInterpreter.open(SparkInterpr eter.java:539)