I did some more digging.
I added extra code to print both the environment variables and the classpath that is used by the HBaseConfiguration to load the resource files.
I call this both locally and during startup of the job (i.e. these logs arrive in the jobmanager.log on the cluster)
Summary of that I found locally:
Environment
2017-10-24 08:50:15,612 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HADOOP_CONF_DIR = /etc/hadoop/conf/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,613 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HBASE_CONF_DIR = /etc/hbase/conf/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,613 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - FLINK_CONF_DIR = /usr/local/flink-1.3.2/conf
2017-10-24 08:50:15,613 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HIVE_CONF_DIR = /etc/hive/conf/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,613 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - YARN_CONF_DIR = /etc/hadoop/conf/
ClassPath
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - --> HBaseConfiguration: URLClassLoader = sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@1b6d3586
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/local/flink-1.3.2/lib/flink-python_2.11-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/local/flink-1.3.2/lib/flink-shaded-hadoop2-uber-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/local/flink-1.3.2/lib/joda-time-2.9.1.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/local/flink-1.3.2/lib/log4j-1.2.17.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/local/flink-1.3.2/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.7.7.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/local/flink-1.3.2/lib/flink-dist_2.11-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/home/nbasjes/FlinkHBaseConnect/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/etc/hadoop/conf/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,614 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/etc/hadoop/conf/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/etc/hbase/conf/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.141-2.b16.el6_9.x86_64/lib/tools.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hbase/
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hbase/lib/activation-1.1.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hbase/lib/aopalliance-1.0.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hbase/lib/apacheds-i18n-2.0.0-M15.jar
2017-10-24 08:50:15,615 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hbase/lib/apacheds-kerberos-codec-2.0.0-M
...
On the cluster node in the jobmanager.log:
ENVIRONMENT
2017-10-24 10:50:19,971 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HADOOP_CONF_DIR = /usr/hdp/current/hadoop-yarn-nodemanager/../hadoop/conf
2017-10-24 10:50:19,971 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - TEZ_CONF_DIR = /etc/tez/conf
2017-10-24 10:50:19,973 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - YARN_CONF_DIR = /usr/hdp/current/hadoop-yarn-nodemanager/../hadoop/conf
2017-10-24 10:50:19,973 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - LOG_DIRS = /var/log/hadoop-yarn/containers/application_1503304315746_0062/container_1503304315746_0062_01_000001
2017-10-24 10:50:19,973 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HADOOP_YARN_HOME = /usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop-yarn
2017-10-24 10:50:19,974 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HADOOP_HOME = /usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop
2017-10-24 10:50:19,975 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - HDP_VERSION = 2.3.4.0-3485
And the classpath:
2017-10-24 10:50:19,977 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/15/flink-hbase-connect-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,977 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/13/lib/flink-dist_2.11-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,977 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/13/lib/flink-python_2.11-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/13/lib/flink-shaded-hadoop2-uber-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/13/lib/joda-time-2.9.1.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/13/lib/log4j-1.2.17.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/13/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.7.7.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/14/log4j.properties
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/11/logback.xml
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/16/flink-dist_2.11-1.3.2.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/filecache/10/flink-conf.yaml
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/var/lib/hadoop-yarn/cache/yarn/nm-local-dir/usercache/nbasjes/appcache/application_1503304315746_0062/container_1503304315746_0062_01_000001/
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/etc/hadoop/conf/
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-nfs-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-common-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485-tests.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-common-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-annotations-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-auth-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-azure-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485.jar
2017-10-24 10:50:19,978 INFO com.bol.bugreports.Main - ----> ClassPath = file:/usr/hdp/2.3.4.0-3485/hadoop/hadoop-aws-2.7.1.2.3.4.0-3485.jar
So apparently everything HBase that was specified clientside is missing when the task is running on my cluster.
The thing is that when running for example a Pig script I get everything perfectly fine on this cluster as it is configured right now.
Also the config 'shouldn't' (I think) need anything different because this application only needs the HBase client (Jar, packaged into application) and the HBase zookeeper settings (present on the machine where it is started).
Niels Basjes