This repo contains a preconfigured version of elasticsearch (version 5.3 but you should be able to use whichever version you prefer), that starts a local three node cluster.
To start it off, simply run the start.sh script, which will start each node of elasticsearch in the background, on ports 9200, 9201, 9202. There will be a lot of error messages thrown, but it's nothing to worry about.
To stop it, run the stop.sh script, again you will have several error messages thrown, but they are nothing to worry about. There are currently two lines in stop.sh one for MacOS, one for Linux, I haven't tested yet whether the Linux line also works for MacOS
It's fairly easy to add nodes, etc, by copying the config_node_x and simply changes the values in the elasticsearch.yml file.
Aside from that, if you want to run each node in its own terminal, simply copy each line out of start.sh into it's own terminal.
The modules, lib and bin directories are all from elasticsearch and are under the Elastic licence.