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The data itself is read from a character device file, the so-called virtual network device. This device is associated with a network interface. Any data sent to this interface can be read from the device, and any data written to the device gets sent from the interface. There are two possible types of virtual network devices: ‘tun’ style, which are point-to-point devices which can only handle IPv4 and/or IPv6 packets, and ‘tap’ style, which are Ethernet devices and handle complete Ethernet frames.
So when tinc reads an Ethernet frame from the device, it determines its type. When tinc is in its default routing mode, it can handle IPv4 and IPv6 packets. Depending on the Subnet lines, it will send the packets off to their destination IP address. In the ‘switch’ and ‘hub’ mode, tinc will use broadcasts and MAC