docker-compose.yml for elasticsearch and kibana

To add the hard dependency on elasticsearch for kibana, you need the depends_on variable to be set as shown below. Also, to add to @Phil McMillan's answer, you can set the elasticsearch_url variable in kibana, without static addressing using Docker's inbuilt DNS mechanism.

version: '2.1'
services:
     elasticsearch:
       image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:5.4.3
       container_name: elasticsearch
       networks:
           docker-elk:

     kibana:
       image: docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana:5.4.3
       container_name: kibana
       environment:
          - "ELASTICSEARCH_URL=http://elasticsearch:9200"
       networks:
          - docker-elk
       depends_on:
          - elasticsearch

networks:
  docker-elk:
    driver: bridge

Note the environment variable ELASTICSEARCH_URL=http://elasticsearch:9200 just uses has the container name (elasticsearch) which the Docker DNS server is able to resolve.

This works for me docker-compose.yml

    version: '3'
    services:
      elasticsearch:
        image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:7.6.2
        environment:
          - discovery.type=single-node
        ports:
          - 9200:9200
      kibana:
        image: docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana:7.6.2
        ports:
          - 5601:5601

You need to include the links.

version: "2.0"
services:
  elasticsearch:
    image: elasticsearch:latest
    ports:
      - "9200:9200"
      - "9300:9300"
    networks:
      - docker_elk
  kibana:
    image: kibana:latest
    ports:
      - "5601:5601"
    links:
      - elasticsearch
    networks:
      - docker_elk
networks:
  docker_elk:
    driver: bridge

UPDATED

When using the image elasticsearch:latest, it's Elasticsearch 5.0 and requires us to increase our Docker host virtual memory.

Before running the docker-compose, please make sure to run this command on your Docker host.

Linux:

su root
sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

Windows (boot2docker)

docker-machine ssh default
sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

If you don't want to change your Docker host, just use the Elasticsearch 2.x image at elasticsearch:2