diff --git a/assembly/pom.xml b/assembly/pom.xml
index f1f8b0d3682e2..53059eaa34faf 100644
--- a/assembly/pom.xml
+++ b/assembly/pom.xml
@@ -92,6 +92,27 @@
           <skip>true</skip>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
+        <!-- zip pyspark archives to run python application on yarn mode -->
+        <plugin>
+          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+            <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
+            <executions>
+              <execution>
+                <phase>package</phase>
+                  <goals>
+                    <goal>run</goal>
+                  </goals>
+              </execution>
+            </executions>
+            <configuration>
+              <target>
+                <delete dir="${basedir}/../python/lib/pyspark.zip"/>
+                <zip destfile="${basedir}/../python/lib/pyspark.zip">
+                  <fileset dir="${basedir}/../python/" includes="pyspark/**/*"/>
+                </zip>
+              </target>
+            </configuration>
+        </plugin>
       <!-- Use the shade plugin to create a big JAR with all the dependencies -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
@@ -196,6 +217,19 @@
             <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
             <version>2.4</version>
             <executions>
+              <!--execution>
+                    <id>pyspark-zip</id>
+                    <phase>package</phase>
+                    <goals>
+                        <goal>single</goal>
+                    </goals>
+                    <configuration>
+                        <skipAssembly>true</skipAssembly>
+                        <descriptors>
+                            <descriptor>src/main/assembly/pyspark-assembly.xml</descriptor>
+                        </descriptors>
+                    </configuration>
+                </execution-->
               <execution>
                 <id>dist</id>
                 <phase>package</phase>
@@ -208,7 +242,7 @@
                   </descriptors>
                 </configuration>
               </execution>
-            </executions>
+          </executions>
           </plugin>
         </plugins>
       </build>
diff --git a/make-distribution.sh b/make-distribution.sh
index c9a26d78239b2..738a9c4d69601 100755
--- a/make-distribution.sh
+++ b/make-distribution.sh
@@ -228,7 +228,6 @@ cp "$SPARK_HOME"/conf/*.template "$DISTDIR"/conf
 cp "$SPARK_HOME/README.md" "$DISTDIR"
 cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/bin" "$DISTDIR"
 cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/python" "$DISTDIR"
-zip -r "$DISTDIR"/python/lib/pyspark.zip "$SPARK_HOME"/python/lib/pyspark
 cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/sbin" "$DISTDIR"
 cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/ec2" "$DISTDIR"
 
diff --git a/project/SparkBuild.scala b/project/SparkBuild.scala
index 09b4976d10c26..3bd70dc0f6af1 100644
--- a/project/SparkBuild.scala
+++ b/project/SparkBuild.scala
@@ -361,12 +361,20 @@ object PySparkAssembly {
     // to be included in the assembly. We can't just add "python/" to the assembly's resource dir
     // list since that will copy unneeded / unwanted files.
     resourceGenerators in Compile <+= resourceManaged in Compile map { outDir: File =>
+      val src = new File(BuildCommons.sparkHome, "python/pyspark")
+
+      val zipFile = new File(BuildCommons.sparkHome , "python/lib/pyspark.zip")
+      IO.delete(zipFile)
+      def entries(f: File):List[File] =
+        f :: (if (f.isDirectory) IO.listFiles(f).toList.flatMap(entries(_)) else Nil)
+      IO.zip(entries(src).map(
+        d => (d, d.getAbsolutePath.substring(src.getParent.length +1))),
+        zipFile)
+
       val dst = new File(outDir, "pyspark")
       if (!dst.isDirectory()) {
         require(dst.mkdirs())
       }
-
-      val src = new File(BuildCommons.sparkHome, "python/pyspark")
       copy(src, dst)
     }
   )