First, export your Kibana index mapping and settings :

curl localhost:9200/.kibana/_settings?pretty
curl localhost:9200/.kibana/_mapping?pretty

Then, Create and index template with your settings and mapping (don't forget to change the type of the offending fields) :

curl -XPUT "http://localhost:9200/_template/kibana" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{
    "template":".kibana-5.6",
    "settings":{
        "number_of_shards":1
    },
    "mappings":{
        "dashboard":{
            "properties":{
                "description":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "hits":{
                    "type":"integer"
                },
                "kibanaSavedObjectMeta":{
                    "properties":{
                        "searchSourceJSON":{
                            "type":"string"
                        }
                    }
                },
                "optionsJSON":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "panelsJSON":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "timeFrom":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "timeRestore":{
                    "type":"boolean"
                },
                "timeTo":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "title":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "uiStateJSON":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "version":{
                    "type":"integer"
                }
            }
        },
        "_default_":{
            "dynamic":"strict"
        },
        "url":{
            "dynamic":"strict",
            "properties":{
                "accessCount":{
                    "type":"long"
                },
                "accessDate":{
                    "type":"date",
                    "format":"strict_date_optional_time||epoch_millis"
                },
                "createDate":{
                    "type":"date",
                    "format":"strict_date_optional_time||epoch_millis"
                },
                "url":{
                    "type":"string",
                    "fields":{
                        "keyword":{
                            "type":"string",
                            "index":"not_analyzed",
                            "ignore_above":2048
                        }
                    },
                    "fielddata":false
                }
            }
        },
        "search":{
            "properties":{
                "columns":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "description":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "hits":{
                    "type":"integer"
                },
                "kibanaSavedObjectMeta":{
                    "properties":{
                        "searchSourceJSON":{
                            "type":"string"
                        }
                    }
                },
                "sort":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "title":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "version":{
                    "type":"integer"
                }
            }
        },
        "index-pattern":{
            "properties":{
                "fieldFormatMap":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "fields":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "timeFieldName":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "title":{
                    "type":"string"
                }
            }
        },
        "server":{
            "dynamic":"strict",
            "properties":{
                "uuid":{
                    "type":"string",
                    "index":"not_analyzed"
                }
            }
        },
        "config":{
            "properties":{
                "buildNum":{
                    "type":"string",
                    "index":"not_analyzed"
                },
                "defaultIndex":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "discover:aggs:terms:size":{
                    "type":"long"
                }
            }
        },
        "visualization":{
            "properties":{
                "description":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "kibanaSavedObjectMeta":{
                    "properties":{
                        "searchSourceJSON":{
                            "type":"string"
                        }
                    }
                },
                "savedSearchId":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "title":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "uiStateJSON":{
                    "type":"string"
                },
                "version":{
                    "type":"integer"
                },
                "visState":{
                    "type":"string"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
'

Then, reindex (copy) the values of your old kibana index to the new one :

curl -XPOST "http://localhost:9200/_reindex" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{
  "source": {
    "index": ".kibana"
  },
  "dest": {
    "index": ".kibana-5.6"
  }
}'

And finally, change your kibana index in /etc/kibana/kibana.yml :

kibana.index: ".kibana-5.6"

Sources