The underlying fix must go to 8.4, as it is the third similar problem with "ethtool -e %DEV" that breaks stability of the underlying system. Sos report tool cant afford such its own behaviour due to an issue of a tool invoked..

I tested it manually on RHEL-8.4 x86_64

OLD

# rpm -qa sos
sos-4.0-5.el8.noarch

# sos report --list-plugins | grep 'networking\.'
 networking.traceroute     off             collect a traceroute to www.example.com
 networking.namespace_pattern                 Specific namespaces pattern to be collected, namespaces pattern should be separated by whitespace as for example "eth* ens2"
 networking.namespaces     0               Number of namespaces to collect, 0 for unlimited. Incompatible with the namespace_pattern plugin option
 networking.ethtool_namespaces on              Define if ethtool commands should be collected for namespaces

Default sos report run
# sos report -o networking --batch
...
Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
	/var/tmp/sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-kihdqsq.tar.xz

# tar tf /var/tmp/sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-kihdqsq.tar.xz | grep ethtool_-e
sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-kihdqsq/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_lo
sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-kihdqsq/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_eth0

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

NEW

# rpm -qa sos
sos-4.0-6.el8.noarch

We can see that eepromdump is now ignored by default
# sos report --list-plugins | grep 'networking\.'
 networking.traceroute     off             collect a traceroute to www.example.com
 networking.namespace_pattern                 Specific namespaces pattern to be collected, namespaces pattern should be separated by whitespace as for example "eth* ens2"
 networking.namespaces     0               Number of namespaces to collect, 0 for unlimited. Incompatible with the namespace_pattern plugin option
 networking.ethtool_namespaces on              Define if ethtool commands should be collected for namespaces
 networking.eepromdump     off             collect 'ethtool -e' for all devices

Default sos report run
# sos report -o networking --batch
...
Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
  /var/tmp/sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-oqqwddm.tar.xz

# tar tf /var/tmp/sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-oqqwddm.tar.xz | grep ethtool_-e

To collect ethtool -e output the eepromdump must be specified now
# sos report -o networking --plugin-option networking.eepromdump --batch
...
[plugin:networking] WARNING (about to collect 'ethtool -e lo'): collecting an eeprom dump is known to cause certain NIC drivers (e.g. bnx2x/tg3) to interrupt device operation
[plugin:networking] WARNING (about to collect 'ethtool -e eth0'): collecting an eeprom dump is known to cause certain NIC drivers (e.g. bnx2x/tg3) to interrupt device operation
...
Your sosreport has been generated and saved in:
	/var/tmp/sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-zpybjxm.tar.xz

# tar tf /var/tmp/sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-zpybjxm.tar.xz | grep ethtool_-e
sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-zpybjxm/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_lo
sosreport-localhost-2021-01-27-zpybjxm/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_eth0

Generic functional reproducer / verification steps:

1)
sosreport -o networking -l

prints:

 networking.eepromdump     off             collect 'ethtool -e' for all devices


2)
sosreport -o networking --batch --build

generates a sos directory:

dir="/var/tmp/$(ls -t /var/tmp/ | grep sosreport -m1)"

that has _no_  ethtool_-e*  files:

(  find $dir | grep ethtool_-e   returns nothing)


3)
sosreport -o networking --batch --build -k networking.eepromdump=on

does call the "ethtool -e DEV" commands:

# dir="/var/tmp/$(ls -t /var/tmp/ | grep sosreport -m1)"
# find $dir | grep ethtool_-e
/var/tmp/sosreport-pmoravec-rhel8-2021-02-15-kfuktnj/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_ens3
/var/tmp/sosreport-pmoravec-rhel8-2021-02-15-kfuktnj/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_cni-podman0
/var/tmp/sosreport-pmoravec-rhel8-2021-02-15-kfuktnj/sos_commands/networking/ethtool_-e_lo
#

FYI hotfix for RHEL 8.1 is available at:

https://people.redhat.com/pmoravec/sos-3.7-9.el8_1/

directory (SRPM and RPMs for sos and also sos-audit are there). No official errata planned for 8.1.

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory (sos bug fix and enhancement update), and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2021:1604