I recommend using docker-compose (which makes lot of things much easier) with following configuration.

Configuration (for development)

Configuration starts 3 services: elastic itself and extra utilities
for development like kibana and head plugin (these could be omitted, if you don’t need them).

In the same directory you will need three files:

• docker-compose.yml
• elasticsearch.yml
• kibana.yml

With following contents:

docker-compose.yml

version: '2'
services:
  elasticsearch:
    image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:5.4.0
    container_name: elasticsearch_540
    environment:
      - http.host=0.0.0.0
      - transport.host=0.0.0.0
      - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms1g -Xmx1g"
    volumes:
      - esdata:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
      - ./elasticsearch.yml:/usr/share/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml
    ports:
      - 9200:9200
      - 9300:9300
    ulimits:
      memlock:
        soft: -1
        hard: -1
      nofile:
        soft: 65536
        hard: 65536
    mem_limit: 2g
    cap_add:
      - IPC_LOCK
  kibana:
    image: docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana:5.4.0
    container_name: kibana_540
    environment:
      - SERVER_HOST=0.0.0.0
    volumes:
      - ./kibana.yml:/usr/share/kibana/config/kibana.yml
    ports:
      - 5601:5601
  headPlugin:
    image: mobz/elasticsearch-head:5
    container_name: head_540
    ports:
      - 9100:9100

volumes:
  esdata:
    driver: local

elasticsearch.yml

cluster.name: "chimeo-docker-cluster"
node.name: "chimeo-docker-single-node"
network.host: 0.0.0.0

http.cors.enabled: true
http.cors.allow-origin: "*"
http.cors.allow-headers: "Authorization"

kibana.yml

server.name: kibana
server.host: "0"
elasticsearch.url: http://elasticsearch:9200
elasticsearch.username: elastic
elasticsearch.password: changeme
xpack.monitoring.ui.container.elasticsearch.enabled: true

Running

With above three files in the same directory and that directory set as current working directory you do (could require sudo, depends how you have your docker-compose set up):

docker-compose up

It will start up and you will see logs from three different services: elasticsearch_540, kibana_540 and head_540.

After initial start up you will have your elastic cluster available for http under 9200 and for tcp under 9300. Validate with following curl if the cluster started up:

curl -u elastic:changeme http://localhost:9200/_cat/health 

Then you can view and play with your cluster using either kibana (with credentials elastic / changeme):

http://localhost:5601/

or head plugin:

http://localhost:9100/?base_uri=http://localhost:9200&auth_user=elastic&auth_password=changeme