How configure apache (vhost) for Server-Hostname

Question

First of all, sorry for my imperfect English. But let me explain my problem with apache vhosts.

Example: My servername is example.de (/etc/hostname). If I configure for this specific domain my vhost won´t work. It seems apache uses the default-vhost. But I need the default-vhost for pages that are not active on my server. So I can´t use it for the domain example.de

I need a solution for following problem:

• example.de - Should point to /var/www/example (This doesn´t work, because /etc/hostanme)
• example2.de - Should point to /var/www/example2 (This works)
• domain-i-got-but-not-active.de Should point to /var/www/default (This works, but also catches example.de)

I can´t change my hostname, because mails sent from my server will be detect as spam if the server name is not correctly set.

Here is an example of my vhost:

 # For default-pages
 <VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/default
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/default>
                Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

# Doesn´t work, points to default (above code)
<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        ServerName example.de
        DocumentRoot /var/www/example
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/example>
                Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

# All fine
<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        ServerName example2.de
        DocumentRoot /var/www/example2
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/example2>
                Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

According to Apache documentation:

If no ServerName is specified, then the server attempts to deduce the hostname by performing a reverse lookup on the IP address.

Reverse lookup: Look up an IP address to find the domain name for the IP address.

I guess that this is why example.de is served by your default VirtualHost, so try to add ServerName domain-i-got-but-not-active.de, and if this VirtualHost is the first defined:

it has the highest priority and can be seen as the default or primary server. That means that if a request is received that does not match one of the specified ServerName directives, it will be served by this first VirtualHost.

Answer 2

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example
    DirectoryIndex index.php
    ServerName example.de 
    setEnv DOMAIN_NAME example.de 
   <Directory "/var/www/example">
         Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
         AllowOverride All
         Order allow,deny
         allow from all
         Require all granted
  </Directory>
  </VirtualHost>

try this