The invention relates to an ELF (executable and linkable format)-based monitoring system version recognition method which comprises the following steps: acquiring a module code of a monitoring system, and establishing a version information database including the names of modules and SVN version number information according to code paths of the local modules; generating an object file after the modules are compiled, acquiring SVN version numbers according to the path and name information of the object file or directly acquiring from a version information database, and embedding version number identification into the object file based on ELF; and calling the version number identifications of the modules, displaying the current version numbers of all the modules, comparing the current version numbers with the version numbers of the corresponding modules in the database, and clearly displaying version upgrading recording information of an on-site monitoring system. The method can recognize the version of the on-site monitoring system and clearly display the on-site upgrading record according to comparison between the version information database of the monitoring system and the version number identifications in the object file, so as to support the upgrading and maintaining of the on-site monitoring system and successfully solve the compatibility problem of on-site upgrading or maintaining system.